The Use of Vignettes in Survey Research
Abstract
The use of vignettes—systematically elaborated descriptions of concrete situations–is supported as a means of producing more valid and more reliable measures of respondent opinion than the “simpler” abstract questions more typical of opinion surveys. The fractional replication experimental design described here enables a wide range of situation characteristics to be included and varied in the presentations made to various respondents while minimizing the number of different vignette versions required for the research instrument. Results from a study of police and nurse reactions to crime victims are shown as an example of this technique
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Studies have shown hypothetical choices in vignettes to have good predictive validity.
“however, studies have shown hypothetical choices in vignettes to have good predictive validity (see e.g., Alexander & Becker, 1978;Hainmueller et al., 2015).”
From Randomized controlled trial of social interaction police training (2020) · cites this paper as Alexander & Becker, 1978
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Hainmueller, J., Hopkins, D. J., & Yamamoto, T. (2014) · Political Analysis · doi:10.1093/pan/mpt024 · Cited by 1,990 · see citing works
Xie, E., Teo, H.-H., & Wan, W. (2006) · Marketing Letters · doi:10.1007/s11002-006-4147-1 · Cited by 122 · see citing works
Randomized controlled trial of social interaction police training
McLean, K., Wolfe, S. E., Rojek, J., Alpert, G. P., & Smith, M. R. (2020) · Criminology & Public Policy · doi:10.1111/1745-9133.12506 · Cited by 100 · see citing works
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Schüler, J., Sheldon, K. M., Prentice, M., & Halusic, M. (2016) · Journal of Personality · doi:10.1111/jopy.12133 · Cited by 80 · see citing works
Van Petegem, S., Zimmer-Gembeck, M. J., Soenens, B., Vansteenkiste, M., Brenning, K., Mabbe, E., Vanhalst, J., & Zimmermann, G. (2017) · Journal of Child and Family Studies · doi:10.1007/s10826-017-0758-9 · Cited by 78 · see citing works
Hypothetical Vignettes in Empirical Bioethics Research
Ulrich, C. M., & Ratcliffe, S. J. (2007) · Advances in Bioethics · doi:10.1016/s1479-3709(07)11008-6 · Cited by 56 · see citing works
Edwards, S., Tinning, L., Brown, J. S. L., Boardman, J., & Weinman, J. (2007) · Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease · doi:10.1097/01.nmd.0000253781.49079.53 · Cited by 52 · see citing works
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“I Can’t Reply with That”: Characterizing Problematic Email Reply Suggestions
Robertson, R. E., Olteanu, A., Diaz, F., Shokouhi, M., & Bailey, P. (2021) · Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3411764.3445557 · Cited by 43 · see citing works
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- Authors
- Alexander, C. S., & Becker, H. J.
- Affiliations
- Johns Hopkins University (US)
- Venue
- Public Opinion Quarterly
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 1978
- Volume
- 42
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 93
- ISSN
- 0033-362X (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2162535192
- Cited by
- 1,169
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 34 · 2025: 44 · 2024: 50 · 2023: 63 · 2022: 66 · 2021: 58 · 2020: 64 · 2019: 59 · 2018: 50 · 2017: 41 · 2016: 45 · 2015: 53 · 2014: 59 · 2013: 45 · 2012: 46
- FWCI
- 9.22
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Public Opinion Quarterly (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Survey Methodology and Nonresponse
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Statistics and Probability › Survey Sampling and Estimation Techniques
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Psychometric Methodologies and Testing
- Keywords
- vignettes, measurement reliability
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