Response-ordering effects: A methodological issue in conjoint analysis

Conjoint analysis is a technique relatively new to the evaluation of health care services in the UK. The technique uses data generated from questionna ires. This paper addresses the issue of response-ordering effects that may result from the ordering of dimensions of benefit within a question. Two qu estionnaires were given to 216 hospital consultants as part of a priority s etting exercise. These were identical other than the ordering of the dimens ions within each question. The regression analysis was segmented according to questionnaire type and the coefficients of the segmentation were tested for statistically significant differences. The results show no evidence of ordering effects. Copyright (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.