Beatriz Cobo Rodriguez

University of Granada | UGR · Departamento de Métodos Cuantitativos para la Economía y la Empresa

Extant scholarship on attitudes toward immigration and immigrants relies mostly on direct survey items. Thus, little is known about the scope of social desirability bias, and even less about its covariates. In this paper, we use probability-based mixed-modes panel data collected in the Southern Spanish region of Andalusia to estimate anti-immigrant...

Randomized response (RR) techniques are widely used in research involving sensitive variables, such as drugs, violence or crime, especially when a population mean or prevalence must be estimated. However, they are not generally applied to examine relationships between a sensitive variable and other characteristics. This type of technique was initia...

Information such as the prevalence and frequency of criminal behaviour is difficult to estimate using standard survey techniques because of the tendency of respondents to withhold or misrepresent information. Social desirability bias is a significant threat to the validity of self-reported data, especially when supplied by persons such as sexual of...

In situations where the estimation of the proportion of sensitive variables relies on the observations of real measurements that are difficult to obtain, there is a need to combine indirect questioning techniques. In the present work, the authors will focus on the item count technique, with alternative methods of sampling, such as the ranked set sa...

Methods to analyze multicategorical variables are extensively used in sociological, medical and educational research. Nonetheless, they have a very sparse presence in finite population sampling when sensitive topics are investigate and data are obtained by means of the randomized response technique (RRT), a survey method based on the principle that...

Understanding how and why physical intimate partner violence (IPV) persists in high-risk communities has proven difficult. As IPV is both sensitive and illegal, people may be inclined to misreport their views and experiences. By embedding a list randomization experiment (LRE), which increases respondent privacy, in a survey of 809 adult Arsi Oromo...

Yu and Lam (Biometrics 53:1070–1080, 1997) proposed a regression estimator for the two-phase sampling procedure in ranked set sampling. The variance expression of their proposed regression estimator seems to be incorrect. In this note, the variance of the regression estimator is corrected.

The aim of the randomized response (RR) technique is to decrease social desirability bias, thus guaranteeing confidentiality, improving respondent cooperation and obtaining reliable estimates. This technique obtains stronger estimates of sensitive characteristics, compared to direct questioning (DQ), by reducing respondents motivation to falsely re...

This article analyzes the efficacy of the randomized response technique (RRT) in achieving honest self-reporting about sexual behavior, compared with traditional survey techniques. A complex survey was conducted of 1,246 university students in Spain, who were asked sensitive quantitative questions about their sexual behavior, either via the RRT (n...

In this article, we describe the methods employed and the results obtained from a mixed-mode “sensitive research” conducted in Spain to estimate certain aspects concerning patterns of cannabis consumption and sexual addiction among university students. Three different data-collection methods are considered and compared: direct questioning, randomiz...

Large scale surveys are increasingly delving into sensitive topics such as gambling, alcoholism, drug use, sexual behavior, domestic violence. Sensitive, stigmatizing or even incriminating themes are difficult to investigate by using standard data-collection techniques since respondents are generally reluctant to release information concerning thei...

Female genital cutting (FGC) has major implications for women’s physical, sexual and psychological health, and eliminating the practice is a key target for public health policy-makers. To date one of the main barriers to achieving this has been an inability to infer privately-held views on FGC within communities where it is prevalent. As a sensitiv...

Sensitive questions in four versions of the survey. (DOCX)

Generating the list, data quality tests and sampling strategy. (DOCX)

Sub group analyses between question methodology (direct versus unmatched count technique) and individual traits (gender, education level and age group), with combined estimates for FGC support (for both daughters and daughters in law), n = 1620. (DOCX)

To collect sensitive data, survey statisticians have designed many strategies to reduce nonresponse rates and social desirability response bias. In recent years, the item count technique (ICT) has gained considerable popularity and credibility as an alternative mode of indirect questioning survey, and several variants of this technique have been pr...

For surveys of sensitive issues in life sciences, statistical procedures can be used to reduce nonresponse and social desirability response bias. Both of these phenomena provoke nonsampling errors that are difficult to deal with and can seriously flaw the validity of the analyses. The item sum technique (IST) is a very recent indirect questioning m...

The rapid evolution of technology in last decades has allowed conducting studies for complex surveys. Over time, the software is used in all steps of the survey: survey design, data collection, statistical data edition, statistical analysis, and publication results. In this chapter we describe software that can be used in conducting surveys using r...

This work proposes a general class of estimators for the population total of a sensitive variable using auxiliary information. Under a general randomized response model, the optimal estimator in this class is derived. Design-based properties of proposed estimators are obtained. A simulation study reflects the potential gains from the use of the pro...

Cannabis is the most widely used illicit drug in developed countries, and has a significant impact on mental and physical health in the general population. Although the evaluation of levels of substance use is difficult, a method such as the randomized response technique (RRT), which includes both a personal component and an assurance of confidenti...

Randomized response (RR) techniques may be used to compile more reliable data, to protect the respondent’s confidentiality, and to avoid an unacceptable rate of nonresponse when the information requested is sensitive (e.g., concerning racism, drug use, abortion, delinquency, AIDS, or academic cheating). Standard RR methods are used primarily in sur...

The methodology of randomized response has advanced considerably in recent years. Nevertheless, to date all the proposed estimators with randomized response techniques have been based on the hypothesis of the availability of a unique and complete list of units forming the target population to be used as a sampling frame. In this paper, we present a...