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Modeling Item Nonresponse in Questionnaires

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Abstract

The statistical analysis of empirical questionnaire data can be hampered by the fact that not all questions are answered by all individuals. In this paper we propose a simple practical method to deal with such item nonresponse in case of ordinal questionnaire data, where we assume that item nonresponse is caused by an incomplete set of answers between which the individuals are supposed to choose. Our statistical method is based on extending the ordinal regression model with an additional category for nonresponse, and on investigating whether this extended model describes and forecasts the data well. We illustrate our approach for two questions from a questionnaire held amongst a sample of clients of a financial investment company.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Econometric Institute, Erasmus University Rotterdam, PO Box 1738, NL-3000 DR, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Philip Hans Franses

  2. Institute for Research and Investment Services, ROBECO–RaboBank, The Netherlands

    Irma Geluk & Paul Van Homelen

Authors
  1. Philip Hans Franses
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  2. Irma Geluk
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  3. Paul Van Homelen
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Franses, P.H., Geluk, I. & Van Homelen, P. Modeling Item Nonresponse in Questionnaires. Quality & Quantity 33, 203–213 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026454011346

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026454011346

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