Effects of Response Format on Race and Ethnicity Measurement in the U.S.

• Activity Number: 444
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, August 6, 2013 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Survey Research Methods Section
• Author(s): Randall Thomas*+ and Frances Barlas and Bill Cook and Wendy Gross
• Companies: GfK Custom Research and ICF International and Advertising Research Foundation and GfK Custom Research
• Keywords: Response format ; Race-ethnicity format ; Demographic measurement

Abstract

Race and ethnicity have often been seen as determinants of people's thoughts and behavior, yet measurement has varied over time. While the 2010 Census provided 5 responses to measure Hispanic origin, the NHIS provided a simple yes or no response. Further, measurement of race uses a slightly different item stem in the 2010 Census ('What is your race?'), the NHIS seems more accepting of multiple responses ('What race or races do you consider yourself to be?'). We conducted an experiment with over 17,000 respondents comparing variations in these items on race and ethnic identification and found little difference in overall proportions of option endorsement. In a second experiment, we changed the nature of response entry with 3000 respondents and found significant differences between a multiple response format (as used in the Census and NHIS) and a yes-no grid format - the yes-no grid format had the highest multi-racial identification along with highest Hispanic identification. We detail some of the substantial implications of varying response format on race-ethnicity measurement.