The tendency to consistently give the same answer to almost all of the items on a survey is known as

The tendency to consistently give the same answer to almost all of the items on a survey is known as response bias. Response bias could impact the validity of the surveys of questionnaires.  

EXPLANATION:  

Response bias is a common term which refers to the participants’ tendencies to answer or respond inaccurately or falsely during a survey. This can be happened because of several reasons. Response bias surely impacts the result of the surveys of the questionnaire. Thus, researchers have to be careful of response bias and its effect so that they can prevent it from impacting the findings.  

Five types of response bias are:

•Acquiescence bias

Acquiescence bias refers to “yes-saying” response where the participants or respondents have a tendency to agree or say “yes” to all of the questions in a survey or questionnaire. The respondents tend to agree to all of the questions in a survey even though the questions are contradictory. For example, they will say “yes” to the questions “I prefer to spend time alone” and “I prefer to spend time with my friends”.  

•Demand characteristics

Demand characteristics is where the participants or respondents shift or alter their response to a survey or questionnaire because they know that they are part of the survey or experiment. This response bias arises because the participants are actively included and engaged in the experiment. They may try to know the goal of the experiment and adopt certain behaviors which they believe are part of an experimental setting.  

•Extreme responding

Extreme responding is response bias which triggers the respondents to only choose or select the most extreme answer or options. This often happens in a survey with potential responses ranging one to five where participants will only select the range one or five.  

•Question order bias

Question order bias is a response bias’ type where the respondents react differently to questions based on its order in the survey or interview.  

•Social desirability bias

Social desirability is a type of response bias which makes the respondents denying certain undesirable traits. The respondents will tend to choose certain traits which are believed as socially desirable. In short, it is response bias where the respondents tend to choose options which make them look more favorable to the experiment.  

LEARN MORE:  

If you’re interested in learning more about this topic, we recommend you to also take a look at the following questions:

1.What is the most important issue that the researcher addressed in planning the research?

2.Statistical studies in which researchers do not control variables of interest are  

KEYWORDS: response bias, survey, tendency to consistently give the same answer  

Subject: Social Studies

Class: 10-12

Sub-chapter: Response Bias  

debating and finalizing the detail of the policy

united states government;