Cognitive Determinants of Data Quality in Public Opinion Polls:
Respondents Definition of the Survey
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Publication date: 2011-12-14
Polish Sociological Review 2011;176(4):493-514
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ABSTRACT
The public opinion survey conducted by CBOS (Public Opinion Research Center) on a representative
nationwide sample of adult Poles (N=1,024) in February 2004 has included a set of questions
developed in order to to reconstruct various dmensions of respondents’ attitudes towards public opinion
polls (e.g. anonymity, confidentiality, role of opinion polling in a democratic society, uses and abuses of
public opinion polls, etc.). The aim was to verify the hypothesis that people who are better educated, more
engaged in politics and already have some survey experience tend to define the interview situation in amore
accurate and more positive way than those who are less educated, less involved in politics and having no
survey experience at all. Thus, education, political participation and survey experience were supposed to
be the main factors determining positive attitudes towards the interview, consequently leading to more
accurate cognitive processes, lower tendency for satisficing and better quality of answers.
Factor analysis (to distinguish patterns of defining public opinion polls) and regression analysis (to
verify the hypotheses) were applied in the analysis of findings
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Preliminary version of this paper was presented at WAPOR Seminar “Quality Criteria in Survey Research” in Cadenabbia (Lago di Como), Italy, June 2004. The author would like to thank Krzysztof Zagórski who supported her in developing idea of the presented research and helped in statistical analyses.