Race/Ethnic Variability in survey Question Processing and Response

描述(由申请人提供)：本提案寻求利用自我报告和辅助数据来源，对受访者的种族/民族和文化如何影响调查相关行为进行系统、全面的评估。虽然大多数人承认文化在决定与调查相关的行为方面可以发挥重要作用，但许多现有的调查证据来自于范围有限和概括性有限的事后和二次分析。此外，大多数现有的调查研究侧重于调查受访者的种族和民族分类，而没有考虑可能调解所观察到的差异的潜在文化取向和价值观。为了解决这些局限性，这项研究将从1200名成年人中收集数据，这些成年人代表美国四个不同的文化群体：非洲裔美国人、韩裔美国人、墨西哥裔美国人和非西班牙裔白人。其中三个群体代表了美国最大的种族/民族人口。韩裔美国人被包括在内，以代表美国快速增长的东亚文化，并确保要评估的文化取向和价值观的最大变异性。抽样的成年人将进一步按性别、年龄、教育程度和语言偏好群体进行分层。采访将被录音和录像。这些录音随后将被行为编码，以识别认知处理困难的语言和非语言标记，例如问题理解、记忆提取、反应映射和社会期望反应方面的问题。与每个答复相关的答复延迟时间也将以电子方式记录。使用这些数据，本研究将使用分层线性模型来研究以下问题：(1)种族/民族对调查访谈中被调查者言语和非语言行为的影响；(2)种族/民族对调查反应风格的影响，如默许和极端反应行为、无差异、无意见反应和反应顺序效应；(3)种族/民族对认知加工的影响受问题设计特征(如话题和格式)的调节程度；以及(4)种族/民族效应在多大程度上可以由文化价值维度上的个体差异来解释。这项研究将提供机会，通过各种常见的调查问题特征来探索认知加工困难中种族/民族差异的大小。它还将通过审查这种差异在多大程度上可归因于文化价值取向的系统差异和其他个人差异，来说明为什么会出现认知和反应效果的种族/族裔差异。结果将导致关于调查问题设计的最佳做法的建议，以最大限度地减少认知加工困难的跨文化差异。这是一个重要的目标，因为健康调查是衡量公共卫生差距的关键标准之一。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal seeks to employ self-report and auxiliary data sources to conduct a systematic, comprehensive assessment of how respondent race/ethnicity and culture influence survey-related behaviors. Although most acknowledge the important role that culture can play in determining survey-related behaviors, much of the available survey evidence comes from post hoc and secondary analyses that have limited scope and generalizability. In addition, most available survey research focuses on racial and ethnic classifications of survey respondents and fails to consider underlying cultural orientations and values that may mediate observed variations. To address these limitations, this study will collect data from a sample of 1,200 adults representing four distinct cultural groups in the U.S.: African Americans, Korean Americans, Mexican Americans, and non-Hispanic Whites. Three of these groups represent the largest racial/ethnic populations in the U.S. Korean Americans are included to represent the country's rapidly growing East Asian culture and to insure maximum variability in the cultural orientations and values to be assessed. Sampled adults will be further stratified by gender, age, education, and language preference groups. Interviews will be audio- recorded and videotaped. These recordings subsequently will be behavior coded to identify verbal and nonverbal markers of cognitive processing difficulties, such as problems with question comprehension, memory retrieval, response mapping, and socially desirable responding. The response latencies associated with each answer also will be electronically recorded. Using these data, hierarchical linear modeling will be employed to investigate research questions concerned with (i) the effects of race/ethnicity on respondent verbal and nonverbal behaviors as indicators of the response process in survey interviews; (2) the effects of race/ethnicity on survey response styles, such as acquiescent and extreme responding behavior, non-differentiation, no-opinion responding, and response order effects; (3) the degree to which the effect of race/ethnicity on cognitive processing is moderated by question design features, such as topic and format; and (4) the degree to which race/ethnicity effects can be explained by individual differences in cultural value dimensions. This research will provide the opportunity to explore the magnitude of racial/ethnic variability in cognitive processing difficulties across a variety of common survey question features. It also will address why racial/ethnic differences in cognitive and response effects emerge by examining the extent to which such differences can be attributed to systematic variations in cultural value orientation and other individual differences. Results will lead to recommendations regarding best practices in the design of survey questions that minimize cross-cultural variability in cognitive processing difficulties. This is an important goal, as health surveys are one of the key yardsticks by which public health disparities are measured.