PRETESTING IN QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN - THE IMPACT OF RESPONDENT CHARACTERISTICS ON ERROR-DETECTION

This paper investigates the effect of respondent characteristics on th e error detection rate in pretesting. Key issues of pretesting as spec ified in the literature are discussed and an experiment is conducted t o determine the consequences of familiarity with questionnaire design and knowledge of the survey topic on the respondent's ability to detec t defective questions. The results indicate that both factors impact u pon the detection rate for most types of defective questions. The impl ications of the findings for questionnaire pretesting are discussed an d directions for further research identified.