FORWARD TELESCOPING - THE QUESTION MATTERS

Forward telescoping, the reporting or dating of events as being more r ecent than they actually were, is often observed in surveys and produc es inaccurate data. We believe that some forward telescoping occurs wh en the question format allows people to respond without extensive retr ieval of temporal information concerning the target events. We collect ed two types of data. The first, the type usually collected by survey researchers, involved visits to medical doctors. As is common in surve y research, the actual dates of the events were not verifiable. The se cond type involved students' participation in laboratory research stud ies. Here, the actual dares were verifiable. We demonstrate that modif ying the questions asked produced differences in the amount of forward telescoping in participants' responses.