Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Impact of Working Memory on Response Order Effects and Question Order Effects in Telephone and Web Surveys

本研究项目将调查工作记忆是否对参与者在调查问卷上提供的回答有影响。 工作记忆是一种认知系统，它既为相关信息提供有限的存储，又为执行正在进行的心理任务提供所需的临时处理。 当个人参与调查时，对于提出的每个问题，参与者必须记住问题和回答选项，同时制定回答。 本研究将扩展目前对工作记忆对被试在态度问题中的反应选择的影响的理解。 这项研究将有助于对调查方法的认知方面的新知识。 这些结果可能对问卷的设计产生影响，并且可能对健康与退休研究（HRS）等具有全国代表性的大型调查特别重要，在这些调查中，测量认知功能至关重要。作为博士论文研究改进奖，提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的，独立的研究生涯。该项目将通过管理一个调查，内布拉斯加州居民的随机样本收集新的数据。 本研究将探讨三个问题：1）工作记忆是否影响问题顺序和反应顺序效应？ 该项目将评估这些影响是否在年轻和老年参与者的高和低工作记忆容量组中一致。 2)工作记忆对问题顺序效应和回答顺序效应的影响在两种调查管理模式（电话和网络）中是否一致？ 为了研究这一问题，将在电话调查和网络调查中使用同一套问题。 3)参与者如何比较两组不同的记忆测量？ 来自健康与退休研究（HRS）的记忆测量子集将被纳入调查，以与其他专门测量工作记忆容量的问题进行比较。 将使用统计方法（如卡方检验和logistic回归）分析数据。

This research project will investigate whether working memory has an impact on the responses participants provide on survey questionnaires. Working memory is a cognitive system that provides both the limited storage for relevant information and the temporary processing needed to perform ongoing mental tasks. When individuals participate in a survey, for each question presented, the participant must remember the question and response options while formulating a response. This research will extend the current understanding of the impact of working memory on participants' response selections in questions about attitudes. The research will contribute new knowledge about the cognitive aspects of survey methodology. The results may have implications for the design of questionnaires and could be of particular importance to large, nationally representative surveys like the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), where it is essential to measure cognitive functioning. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, support is provided to enable a promising student to establish a strong, independent research career.This project will collect new data through administering a survey to a random sample of Nebraska residents. Three research questions will be addressed with this data: 1) Does working memory impact question order and response order effects? The project will assess whether these effects are consistent across high and low working memory capacity groups for younger and older participants. 2) Is the impact of working memory on question-order effects and response-order effects consistent across two modes of survey administration, telephone and web? To examine this question, the same set of questions will be administered in a telephone survey and web survey. 3) How do participants compare across two different sets of memory measures? A subset of memory measures from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) will be included in the survey to compare with other questions designed to specifically measure working memory capacity. The data will be analyzed using statistical methods such as chi-square tests and logistic regression.