In
survey sampling In statistics, survey sampling describes the process of selecting a sample of elements from a target population to conduct a survey.
The term "survey" may refer to many different types or techniques of observation. In survey sampling it most often ...
, respondent error refers to any error introduced into the survey results due to respondents providing untrue or incorrect information. It is a type of
systemic bias
Systemic bias, also called institutional bias, and related to structural bias, is the inherent tendency of a process to support particular outcomes. The term generally refers to human systems such as institutions. Institutional bias and structur ...
.
Several factors can lead to respondent error. Language and educational issues can lead to a misunderstanding of the question by the respondent, or similarly, a misunderstanding of the response by the surveyor.
Recall bias
Recall may refer to:
* Recall (bugle call), a signal to stop
* Recall (information retrieval), a statistical measure
* ''ReCALL'' (journal), an academic journal about computer-assisted language learning
* Recall (memory)
* ''Recall'' (Overwatch ...
can lead to misinformation based on a respondent misrecalling the facts in question.
Social desirability bias
In social science research, social-desirability bias is a type of response bias that is the tendency of survey respondents to answer questions in a manner that will be viewed favorably by others. It can take the form of over-reporting "good behavio ...
can lead a respondent to respond in a fashion that he or she thinks is correct or better or less embarrassing, rather than providing true and honest responses.
When designing a survey it should be remembered that uppermost in the respondent's mind will be protecting their own personal privacy, integrity and interests. Also, the way the respondent interprets the questionnaire and the wording of the answer the respondent gives can cause inaccuracies to enter the survey data. Careful questionnaire design, effective training of interviewers and adequate survey testing can overcome these problems to some extent.
Sometimes, it also may be a case that a particular survey is being done for a socially prohibited issue, like use of pantyhose as conducted by DuPont in 2001–02. For such surveys questionnaire may not be as successful as a Projective Technique. So, some cases can be classified where the respondents may intentionally generate an error.
Survey methodology
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