TY - JOUR

T1 - New insights on respondents’ recall ability and memory effects when repeatedly measuring political efficacy

AU - Höhne, Jan Karem

N1 - Funding Information: Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. I acknowledge financial support by the German Research Foundation (Grant Number: 139943784) through the Collaborative Research Center 884 “Political Economy of Reforms” at the University of Mannheim (Germany).

PY - 2022/8

Y1 - 2022/8

N2 - Many study designs in social science research rely on repeated measurements implying that the same respondents are asked the same (or nearly the same) questions at least twice. An assumption made by such study designs is that respondents second answer does not depend on their first answer. However, if respondents recall their initial answer and base their second answer on it memory effects may affect the survey outcome. In this study, I investigate respondents’ recall ability and memory effects within the same survey and randomly assign respondents to a device type (PC or smartphone) and a response format (response scale or text field) for reporting their previous answer. While the results reveal no differences regarding device types, they reveal differences regarding response formats. Respondents’ recall ability is higher when they are provided with the response scale again than when they are only provided with a text field (without displaying the response scale again). The same finding applies to the size of estimated memory effects. This study provides evidence that the size of memory effects may have been overestimated in previous studies.

AB - Many study designs in social science research rely on repeated measurements implying that the same respondents are asked the same (or nearly the same) questions at least twice. An assumption made by such study designs is that respondents second answer does not depend on their first answer. However, if respondents recall their initial answer and base their second answer on it memory effects may affect the survey outcome. In this study, I investigate respondents’ recall ability and memory effects within the same survey and randomly assign respondents to a device type (PC or smartphone) and a response format (response scale or text field) for reporting their previous answer. While the results reveal no differences regarding device types, they reveal differences regarding response formats. Respondents’ recall ability is higher when they are provided with the response scale again than when they are only provided with a text field (without displaying the response scale again). The same finding applies to the size of estimated memory effects. This study provides evidence that the size of memory effects may have been overestimated in previous studies.

KW - Memory effects

KW - Mixed-device survey

KW - Political efficacy

KW - Recall ability

KW - Repeated measurement

KW - Response format

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85114873428&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s11135-021-01219-2

DO - 10.1007/s11135-021-01219-2

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85114873428

VL - 56

SP - 2549

EP - 2566

JO - Quality and Quantity

JF - Quality and Quantity

SN - 0033-5177

IS - 4

ER -