Hi.
When delicate topics like perceived social norms regarding immigration, violence, racism etc are measured and political affiliation needs to be considered, what is the opinion on identified vs anonymous survey responding? I want to decrease careless responding but avoid social desirability as best as possible. While there are several measures that I consider to use, I am torn about this one. Meade & Craig (2012) showed that identified answering resulted in less careless responding, but I wonder whether that is suitable for topics like the ones mentioned.
Thanks.
Are you working with a general sample? Meade & Craig (2012 make the point that the more interesting and meaningful the survey topic is, the less likely you are to have problems with careless responding.
Also, you need to consider ethical issues associated with having identifiable participants -- especially if the issues are sensitive for the sample in question.
Carina - I'm with David (as usual). To me, this is more about ethics - and approval. The more emotive the topic matter - the more that anonymity comes into play. While you may want to avoid those factors, at the end of the day you cannot accurately determine to what extent they have influenced them so, in my mind, you might as well go for anonymous.
I don't buy the view that more accountability or trustworthiness would stem from identified surveys, and with the topics you're investigating, I would be floored if the ethics review board at your university approves identified sampling. In due respect of regular ethics norms, you need to perform anonymous surveys.
Policies may vary from country to country, but in the United States, it would be a violation of ethics (and the law) to reveal the actual names of study participants to anyone outside the actual group of researchers. At the very least, your Informed Consent must ask for permission to quote them by their actual names.
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