Context Effect
The term context effect refers to a process in which prior questions affect responses to later questions in surveys. Any survey that contains multiple questions is susceptible to context effects. Context effects have the potential to bias the thinking and answers of survey respondents, which reduces the accuracy of answers and increases the error in survey measurement. Psychologists refer to context effects as the general effect of priming. Priming occurs when the previous activation of one type of information in active memory affects the processing of subsequent related information. For example, the prior presentation of the word doctor reduces the time it takes to subsequently recognize the word nurse in comparison to an unrelated word. This priming effect is thought to occur because the activation ...
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Reader's Guide
Ethical Issues In Survey Research
Measurement - Interviewer
Measurement - Mode
Measurement - Questionnaire
Measurement - Respondent
Measurement - Miscellaneous
Nonresponse - Item-Level
Nonresponse - Outcome Codes And Rates
Nonresponse - Unit-Level
Operations - General
Operations - In-Person Surveys
Operations - Interviewer-Administered Surveys
Operations - Mall Surveys
Operations - Telephone Surveys
Political And Election Polling
Public Opinion
Sampling, Coverage, And Weighting
Survey Industry
Survey Statistics
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