survey-designlisted

# Survey Instrument Designer ## Instructions ### 1. Question Construction - **Item-Specific Wording:** Frame questions with item-specific response options rather than agree/disagree, true/false, or yes/no formats. Instead of "Do you agree that immigration benefits the economy?" use "How much does immigration benefit or harm the economy?" with a substantive scale. This reduces acquiescence bias and forces respondents to process the item content (Stantcheva 2023). - **Open-Ended vs. Closed-Ended:** Use open-ended questions to discover respondent frames and vocabulary before designing closed-ended items. Deploy open-ended items in pilots to generate response categories, then convert to closed-ended for the main study. In the main survey, reserve open-ended items for exploratory or manipulation-check purposes. - **Behavioral vs. Attitudinal:** Prefer behavioral measures (what respondents would do) over attitudinal measures (what respondents feel) when the research question concerns real-world consequences. Attitudinal items are appropriate when the construct of interest is itself an attitude, but note that attitude-behavior gaps are well documented. - **Avoid Double-Barreled Questions:** Each item should measure exactly one construct. "Do you support increased immigration and refugee resettlement?" conflates two distinct policy domains. Split into separate items. - **Avoid Leading and Loaded Language:** Avoid terms that signal a "correct" answer or carry strong normative connot