Testing Mark-all-that-apply Measures of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

Many social identities (e.g., race, ethnicity) are measured using mark-all-that-apply (MATA) questions because they allow survey respondents to account for the multiple, nonexclusive ways in which they identify themselves. We test the use of MATA measures of sexual orientation and gender identity an...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Field Methods 2018-11, Vol.30 (4), p.357-370
Main Authors: Brenner, Philip S., Bulgar-Medina, Justine
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Best Practices
Bisexuality
Data quality
Decision making
Ethnicity
Gays & lesbians
Gender identity
Homosexuality
Lesbianism
Measurement Techniques
Polls & surveys
Sexual Identity
Sexual Orientation
Sexuality
Social identity
Surveys
Test Construction
Test Format
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Summary:Many social identities (e.g., race, ethnicity) are measured using mark-all-that-apply (MATA) questions because they allow survey respondents to account for the multiple, nonexclusive ways in which they identify themselves. We test the use of MATA measures of sexual orientation and gender identity and compare them with forced choice (FC), an alternative format using a series of yes-or-no questions. Respondents, including an oversample of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ) individuals, participated in a 2 × 3 factorial survey experiment. For the first factor, we hypothesize that respondents randomly assigned to FC will report a higher count of identities than those assigned to MATA. For the second factor, we hypothesize that increased topic salience will help LGBQ respondents in particular to overcome poor question design. Findings suggest that MATA and FC measure comparably when question writing best practices are followed, but topic salience can yield higher data quality when poorly formatted questions are used.
ISSN:1525-822X
1552-3969
DOI:10.1177/1525822X18795872