The Evolution of Pew Research Center’s Survey Questions About the Origins and Development of Life on Earth

Question-wording matters, friends! This example shows how question order and question-wording can affect participant response. This is a good example for all of your research methods and psychometrics students to chew on.

Pew Research asked people if they believed in evolution. They did so in three different ways, which lead to three different response patterns.
1) Prior to asking about evolution, the asked whether or not the participant believes in God.
2) Asked participants if they believed in evolution. If they said "yes", they asked the participant whether or not they believe that a higher power guides evolution.
3) They asked participants if they believed in evolution and gave participants three response options:
a) Don't believe in evolution.
b) Believe in evolution due to natural selection.
c) Believe in evolution guided by a higher power.

Responses to Option 1:

Responses to Options 2. and 3.

Oh, the classroom discussions that could come out of this example!

Comments

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