The Effect of Language of Survey Administration on the Response Formation Process

Abstract

Introduction With the increasing number of people of multiple cultural backgrounds in modern societies, surveys of ethnic minorities and immigrants are becoming more common. One obvious source of measurement differences is the necessary use of different languages when intending to measure the same phenomena in multiple ethnocultural groups. Typically, surveys allow respondents to answer in the language of their choice, possibly introducing self-selection bias to the extent to which those who choose their mother tongue differ in background characteristics (e.g., level of acculturation, education), substantive answers, and response patterns (e.g., “don’t know” responses) from those who choose the mainstream language. However, although self-selection certainly plays a role in differences observed across the different language versions of a survey, it is premature to consider it the sole source of all observed differences. There is a known link between language and cognition (e.g., Whorf, 1956). To study language influences on the response formation process in surveys, we need to assert that the various language versions of a survey are free of translation problems and convey the same constructs. Thus, any observed differences between responses provided by the same respondent in different languages can be attributed to language priming a particular mind frame and influencing the thought processes. To examine the potential effects of language on survey responses, we focus on the response formation model (Sudman, Bradburn, & Schwarz, 1996; Tourangeau, Rips, & Rasinski, 2000). The right-hand side of Figure 1-1 presents the tasks that respondents perform to answer a survey question: attending to the question and response options (comprehension), retrieving the necessary information (retrieval and judgment), assessing the