Unmatched count

The Unmatched -Count Technique ( occasionally Item Count Technique ) is a method of psychology and empirical social research, to reduce certain distortions of interview responses.

If at the scientific question only interested in the number of people who have a certain characteristic, opinion, or attitude, offers the Unmatched -Count Technique by anonymizing a way to estimate the actual number of carriers of the critical feature.

Method

Respondents are divided into two groups at random. In one group (control group), only a few harmless questions are asked, in the other group in addition the "sensitive issue " that is a question more (hence the name " Unmatched Count" ). Respondents are asked to indicate only how many " yes" answers you have given. Since the interviewer does not know how the said sum has arisen is the critical " yes" response, the admission of the embarrassing property protected. Because of the unequal number of questions, the proportion of can "yes" answers to the question of interest are then eliminated.

Example

The control group should indicate how many of the following statements are true:

• I am ever moved.
• I own a pet.
• I like going to the movies.
• I like to watch sports on TV.

The number of " yes" answers in this group was 31

The other group, the question receives an additional according to the feature of interest:

• I have cheated ever in a study.

The number of "yes " responses in this group was 34

Evaluation

The number of "yes " responses in the control group is the so-called baseline. The assumption is that the second group would have without the critical question had the same number, ie that based the difference of 3 in the example on the number of " yes" answers to the critical question. The percentage of "yes" -men ( at eg 100 respondents per group, there would be 3% ) is taken as an estimate of the proportion of cheaters in the population.