Race/Ethnic Variability in survey Question Processing and Response

描述（由申请人提供）：本提案旨在采用自我报告和辅助数据源，对受访者种族/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调查相关行为方面可以发挥重要作用，但大部分可用的调查证据来自事后和二次分析，其范围和普遍性有限。此外，大多数现有的调查研究侧重于调查对象的种族和族裔分类，而没有考虑到潜在的文化取向和价值观，可能调解观察到的差异。为了解决这些局限性，本研究将从代表美国四个不同文化群体的1,200名成年人样本中收集数据：非裔美国人、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，包括韩裔美国人，以代表该国迅速发展的东亚文化，并确保在文化取向和价值观的最大变化进行评估。抽样的成年人将进一步按性别、年龄、教育和语言偏好分组。访谈将进行录音和录像。这些记录随后将被行为编码，以识别认知处理困难的语言和非语言标记，例如问题理解，记忆检索，反应映射和社会期望反应的问题。与每个答案相关的回复时间也将以电子方式记录。使用这些数据，分层线性模型将被用于调查研究问题，涉及（i）种族/民族对被访者的语言和非语言行为的影响，作为调查访谈中反应过程的指标;（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/民族对认知处理的影响在多大程度上受到问题设计特征（如主题和格式）的调节;（4）种族/民族影响在多大程度上可以通过文化价值维度的个体差异来解释。这项研究将提供机会，探讨在各种常见的调查问题功能的认知处理困难的种族/民族变异的幅度。它还将解决为什么种族/民族的认知和反应效果的差异出现的程度，这种差异可以归因于文化价值取向和其他个体差异的系统性变化。结果将导致建议的最佳做法，在设计的调查问题，最大限度地减少跨文化差异的认知处理困难。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主要尺度之一。

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.