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Public perception of wildlife consumption and trade during the COVID-19 outbreak
Abstract and Figures
The COVID-19 pandemic has drawn great attention to the potential public health risks associated with the consumption and trade of wildlife. To inform legislative revision and policy changes, we conducted a web-based survey of the general public, attracting 74,040 responses. The survey examined public support for revising legislation and policy related to wildlife consumption and trade management. The results and analysis revealed: (1) The overwhelming majority (> 90%) of constituents supported more stringent policy and legislation on wildlife consumption, trade, and commercial exhibitions. (2) The consumption of wildlife is likely to fall due to COVID-19. (3) People that engaged either directly or indirectly in wildlife-related industries showed less support for more stringent policy and legislation on wildlife consumption and trade. Based on these results and concerns for public health security, a ban on wildlife consumption and revised legislation by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress was widely supported, particularly among educated, urban respondents.
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... In Zhalong and Xishuangbanna, the percentages of tourists who had eaten wildlife dropped from 8.6 % and 9.5 % before the outbreak to 0 % and 4.1 % after the outbreak, and the proportion of tourists who would possibly buy and eat wildlife if encountering illegal wildlife selling dropped from 6.3 % and 2.7 % before the outbreak both to 0 % after the outbreak. This finding is consistent with the survey conducted by Shi et al. [24], which indicates that the people who had eaten wildlife tend to stop consumption after the outbreak of the pandemic. In our study, the top reason (60.9 % in Zhalong and 45.8 % in Xishuangbanna) that tourists stopped eating wildlife were wildlife consumption ban. ...
... Immediately after the outbreak, public opinion against wildlife utilization that is unsustainable, illegal, or carries significant risks to human health helped produce mandates for policy change [44]. In a survey of Chinese public opinion on wildlife trade and consumption carried out in February 2020, 96.2 % favored legislation to ban the eating of wildlife, and 95.1 % were in favor of legislation to prohibit the trading of wildlife and their products [24]. ...
... This suggests that people with higher education or working in wildliferelated sectors are more likely not to support a complete ban on the trading and consumption of wildlife. The study of Shi et al. [24] also show that groups engaged in wildlife breeding and utilization are more likely than other groups not to support a complete ban on wildlife trade and consumption. ...
After the outbreak of COVID-19, China has taken a quick action and issued a ban on terrestrial wildlife consumption. After 2 years' implementation of the ban, the long effect of ban is a concern. In order to understand the public attitudes towards wildlife consumption and its change before and after the outbreak of the pandemic, the study was conducted among tourists in Zhalong and Xishuangbanna nature reserves, where there has been news on tourists consuming wildlife before the pandemic. A total of 348 valid questionnaires (128 in Zhalong and 220 in Xishuangbanna) were collected. The survey results show that collaborative actions coordinating strict enforcement and publicity is the most critical factor affecting wildlife protection. The top two reasons why tourists ceased consuming wildlife were wildlife consumption ban and fear of the zoonotic disease, while extensive publicity was the determinant factor to the high perception of the strict enforcement and the risk of zoonotic diseases caused by wildlife among tourists. And tourists have a higher sense of responsibility for wildlife protection after the outbreak of the pandemic, more than 50 % tourists (61.9 % in Zhalong and 48.4 % in Xishuangbanna) would like to take more proactive action than only refusing to buy wildlife, such as reporting to authorities and dissuading others from buying when encountering illegal wildlife selling. However, it is found that more efforts should be taken to enhance the tourists' knowledge of wildlife and wildlife protection laws. Even though about 90 % tourists know about the ban and other legislations on wildlife, about half of tourists have no clear idea about the specific provisions. The knowledge about wildlife is even poorer, only about one third of tourists surveyed gave 100 % correct answer to the questions about the species that are categorized as wildlife and the wildlife that are permitted to be farmed and eat. Geography is found to have influences on tourists' law compliance and perception of wildlife protection. The tourists from the north show stronger obedience to government requirements but have less knowledge of wildlife legislations, while those from the south, who have the better knowledge of wildlife legislations, show a lower inclination (65.5 % in Xishuangbanna) for the permanent ban on wildlife consumption. The tourists surveyed with higher education or employed in wildlife-related sectors have cautious attitudes towards the complete and permanent ban and prefer to support the science-based management of wildlife protection.
... Lastly, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about changes in public perception of health, zoonoses, and the trade of animals (Shi et al., 2020). However, from our results, we can conclude that while the concept of OH has become more evident for the majority of respondents, the relationship between OH and AW has not been affected in the same way. ...
Introduction: The recent COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the crucial role of the “One Health” (OH) concept in the prevention, early detection, and mitigation of health issues involving humans, animals, and the environment. Recognizing the intrinsic interdependence among human health, animal health, and environmental well-being is crucial, demanding heightened emphasis. Many health challenges stem from situations that compromise animal welfare (AW), human well-being, environmental sustainability, and vice versa. Recognizing the significance of AW across its five domains is essential for preventing future pandemics and advancing global objectives such as food security, reduction of human suffering, biodiversity conservation, and enhanced productivity in the agricultural-livestock sector.
Methods: From March to May 2023, we conducted an online survey using QuestionPro® to explore perceptions, experiences, ongoing strategies, and activities within disciplines linked to AW and the OH approach in Latin America. Respondents included stakeholders from various disciplines associated with OH and AW.
Results: Our findings reveal that both concepts are currently undergoing an expansion phase in Latin America. However, the interdependencies between AW and OH are not widely recognized. While animal welfare frequently receives significant attention from diverse educational perspectives, the OH approach has gained considerable momentum over the past decade. Academic sectors and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are driving initiatives bridging AW and OH in Latin America, underscoring the need for robust public policies to ensure sustainable strategies.
Discussion: Advocating for greater awareness of the interdependence between AW and OH, this study highlights knowledge gaps among the scientific community and policymakers. Actively engaging with these connections can foster comprehensive strategies to address global health challenges and enhance overall well-being. The “One Welfare” framework and other integrative frameworks hold promise in strengthening the linkages between AW and OH, facilitating theory translation into practical action. Establishing comprehensive, integrated policies that unite these domains is imperative for addressing complex health challenges and advancing the welfare of both animals and humans. Further research and collaborative efforts are essential to transform these concepts into tangible, impactful outcomes.
... Due to the perceived threat of the Covid-19 outbreak, more than 90% of the respondents support more stringent policies and legislation on wildlife trade, consumption, and commercial exhibitions (Shi et al., 2020). Shi et al. also note that the support is more prevalent among educated and urban people. ...
Biodiversity provides many benefits to humans in general and urban residents in particular. However, the rising population, income, and wildlife product consumption demands contribute to the deliberately organized illegal wildlife trade expansion. Protected areas are designated mainly for biodiversity conservation but face financial constraints for management activities. The increased illegal wildlife trade and lack of financing in protected areas can negatively affect biodiversity levels. Thus, the current dissertation is dedicated to answering the question: “How can we mitigate biodiversity loss in protected areas by better involving urban residents in biodiversity conservation?”
To answer this question, the dissertation comprises three studies and data collection about the psychology and behaviors related to biodiversity and conservation among urban residents.
... HOH can complement nature-based solutions (NBS), where the former refers to the unknown part of nature, while the latter is based on already known natural knowledge. many studies have analyzed the influence of the pandemic on public attitudes toward wildlife consumption, food safety , and wildlife conservation (Tarakini et al., 2021;Shi et al., 2020), OH-framed environmental awareness has not been discussed. In this study, we applied internet data technology (see Supporting Information) to mine public awareness of OH from China's most used social media platform, WeChat (founded by Tencent in 2011), which has ∼1.3 billion active monthly users (Statista, 2022), during the COVID-19 outbreak in China (January 1 to March 31, 2020). ...
The COVID-19 outbreak has forced the world to rethink the interconnected health of humans and nature, i.e. One Health (OH). However, the current sector-technology-based solutions have a high cost. We propose a human-oriented One Health (HOH) concept to restrain the unsustainable behaviors of natural resource exploitation and consumption, which may trigger original zoonosis spillover from an imbalanced natural ecosystem. HOH can complement a nature-based solution (NBS), where the former refers to the unknown part of nature, while the latter is based on already known natural knowledge. Additionally, a systemic analysis of popular Chinese social media during the pandemic outbreak (January 1-March 31, 2020) revealed that the wide public was influenced by OH thought. In the post-pandemic era, it is time to deepen public awareness of HOH to guide the world onto a more sustainable track and prevent more serious zoonosis spillover in the future.
... The farming and trade of wild animals are of interest to many consumers and producers, especially the livelihoods of farmers. Many farmers have taken out loans to start wildlife farming with the support of government incentives, and the policy of banning wildlife consumption will cause significant economic losses to them [2]. ...
Wildlife markets are the suspected source of the current outbreak and the 2002 SARS outbreak, and the consumption of wild meat is thought to be the source of the Ebola virus in Africa. After the new coronavirus outbreak, the trade regarding wildlife markets was once again thrust into the limelight. We need to analyze how trade in wildlife products should be regulated in the context of relevant realities and specific data to answer the six questions in this case.
... The behavior of food consumption is influenced by cultural and social aspects [6]. Numerous past studies have highlighted the importance of understanding the cultural and ethical factors regarding food demand [7][8][9][10][11]. Chinese culture often attaches ceremonial purposes to meals and communal food sharing is seen across the country as a means to bond, entertain, make social arrangements, and even resolve disputes [12,13]. ...
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Chinese government adopted a series of preventative measures to control the spread of the virus. This paper studies the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated prevention methods on meal sharing in China. Meal gathering during multiple periods before and after the outbreak of COVID-19 is captured through two waves of online survey across China between March and June 2020, collecting a total of 1847 observations. We employ the difference-in-difference (DID) method to identify the causal effects of COVID-19 severity on meal sharing. The results show that relative to the same period in 2019, the frequency of meal gathering decreased sharply after the initial outbreak of the coronavirus in 2020 in both epicenters and non-epicenters. Furthermore, the impact of COVID-19 differed across different types of meal sharing. Our findings have implications for consumers, food service operators, as well as policymakers to understand the social and community impact of the pandemic and to adjust their coping strategies.
... The findings align with a recent study regarding Chinese public opinions on revising legislation and wildlife consumption and trade management policy. Due to the perceived threat of the COVID-19 outbreak, more than 90% of the respondents support more stringent policies and legislation on wildlife trade, consumption, and commercial exhibitions (Shi et al., 2020). Shi et al. also note that the support is more prevalent among educated and urban people. ...
Biodiversity loss is happening at an unprecedented rate, especially in countries like Vietnam, with rich biodiversity and a high population growth rate. One of the main causes of biodiversity loss in Vietnam is the unsustainable bushmeat consumption rate in urban areas. To help mitigate the demand for bushmeat, this study aims to examine the associations between biodiversity loss perceptions, perception toward the prohibition of illegal wildlife consumption, and bushmeat consumption behaviors among urban residents in Vietnam. The investigation employed the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF)—an analytical framework that combines the strengths of the mindsponge mechanism and Bayesian inference to facilitate investigation into psychological and behavioral issues—on 535 respondents from urban areas across Vietnam (mostly in the two urban centers of Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi). We found that people perceiving environmental degradation, and losses of economic growth, nature‐based recreation opportunities, health, and knowledge as consequences of biodiversity loss were more likely to support the prohibition of illegal wildlife consumption. Although urban residents tended to consume bushmeat less frequently if they perceived losses of economic growth and knowledge as consequences of biodiversity loss, the perception of environmental degradation had an opposite effect on the behavior. Additionally, people consuming bushmeat frequently and supporting the biodiversity loss preventive measure seemed to share similar features: high income and educational levels. These paradoxical results hint at the cultural additivity phenomenon—the willingness to incorporate into one's mind the new values that might or might not logically contradict their existing core cultural values—and its influence on psychology and behavior among Vietnamese urban residents. Given the influence of cultural additivity, it is recommended to put tougher measures (e.g., financial punishment) into perspective so that urban people can recognize the high “cost” of bushmeat consumption and change their perceptions and behaviors accordingly. Apart from that, social marketing, demarketing, or educational campaigns should convey knowledge and information that can help receivers relate biodiversity loss and bushmeat consumption to their subjective cost‐benefit judgments rather than the rarity of the species to avoid triggering an anthropogenic Allee effect—for example, emphasizing the penalty for consuming bushmeat and negative impacts of biodiversity loss on humans in targeted campaigns (e.g., losses of economic growth and knowledge). People perceiving environmental degradation, and losses of economic growth, nature‐based recreation opportunities, health, and knowledge as consequences of biodiversity loss were more likely to support the prohibition of illegal wildlife consumption. People consuming bushmeat frequently and supporting the biodiversity loss preventive measure seemed to share similar features: high income and educational levels, hinting at the cultural additivity phenomenon.
Introduction
As one of the megadiverse countries, the effectiveness of wildlife protection in China is of great significance to global biodiversity conservation. With continued evolution and revisions, China’s Wildlife Protection Law has listed over 140 marine species; however, it is still inclined toward terrestrial animals.
Methods
To narrow the gap between compliance and enforcement, we collected 1,309 effective responses from various coastal cities of China through an anonymous online questionnaire survey, to investigate their exposure, understanding and attitudes toward Wildlife Protection Law for marine species (mWPL).
Results
Most respondents demonstrated an overall good understanding about the context, necessity and effectiveness of mWPL. The fisher communities were found to be more aware of the dissemination and implementation of mWPL. However, they understood less of the penal system, and exhibited negative attitudes toward the necessity and punishment of the legislation, probably due to the conflicts between resource utilizations and legislative interventions. The participants also indicated that seahorses, horseshoe crabs and corals were commonly subjected to illegal exploitations.
Discussion
While most respondents suggested greater fines, tighter laws and better public enforcement, we advocate the exploration of bottom-up options such as community engagement and environmental education to improve compliance and implementation of mWPL for the benefit of marine wildlife conservation in China.
The wildlife trade is a major cause of species loss and can trigger disease transmission. While the COVID-19 pandemic sparked public interest in eliminating the wildlife trade, a better understanding is needed of the economic repercussions of COVID-19 on those who rely on wildlife farming for their livelihoods. Using the case studies of Ba Ria Vung Tau and Binh Duong provinces in Vietnam – a country seen as Asia’s wildlife trade hotspot – this paper explores COVID-19’s impacts on wildlife farms and their owners. Understanding these impacts is important, both in order to design appropriate interventions to support local people in mitigating COVID-19’s impacts as well as to inform effective policymaking around wildlife conservation in Vietnam. In this study, we adopted mixed research methods (including a literature and policy review, stakeholder consultation with government agencies and NGOs engaged in designing and monitoring wildlife conservation policies, a wildlife farming household survey, and research validation workshop) to understand the status of Vietnamese wildlife farms, as well as the impacts of COVID-19, and any opportunities and challenges for wildlife conservation and management in Vietnam. Our paper shows that, across the two studied provinces, numbers of wildlife farms and farmed wildlife animals have both declined since the pandemic, with declining market demand and wildlife farm owners experiencing difficulties accessing markets due to travel restrictions. Although this affected wildlife-related income, this represented less than 30% of families’ overall income on average, and thus households were able to to maintain their livelihoods through other sources. Most wildlife is raised as an additional food source for farming families and plays an important role in the diets of surveyed households. Findings also highlighted that most surveyed households’ post-pandemic recovery strategies involved expanding their wildlife farms in scope and scale; these households perceived a stable domestic market and high prices for wildlife products in future. Our study found several opportunities for sustainable wildlife farming practices, including greater political commitment, an increasing number of wildlife conservation policies, and stronger law enforcement mechanisms. Challenges remain, however; including an unclear and inconsistent policy framework, the presence of an illegal market, and wildlife farm owners’ limited knowledge and understanding of wildlife policies. Our paper also shows a lack of comprehensive data and understanding around actual wildlife transactions during the pandemic, leading to challenges in confirming whether COVID-19 had any real impact on wildlife trade. Further research is required to address this knowledge gap.
The ongoing outbreak of viral pneumonia in China and beyond is associated with a novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2¹. This outbreak has been tentatively associated with a seafood market in Wuhan, China, where the sale of wild animals may be the source of zoonotic infection². Although bats are likely reservoir hosts for SARS-CoV-2, the identity of any intermediate host that might have facilitated transfer to humans is unknown. Here, we report the identification of SARS-CoV-2-related coronaviruses in Malayan pangolins (Manis javanica) seized in anti-smuggling operations in southern China. Metagenomic sequencing identified pangolin-associated coronaviruses that belong to two sub-lineages of SARS-CoV-2-related coronaviruses, including one that exhibits strong similarity to SARS-CoV-2 in the receptor-binding domain. The discovery of multiple lineages of pangolin coronavirus and their similarity to SARS-CoV-2 suggests that pangolins should be considered as possible hosts in the emergence of novel coronaviruses and should be removed from wet markets to prevent zoonotic transmission.
From the beginning of 2002 and 2012, severe respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS‐CoV) and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS‐CoV) crossed the species barriers to infect humans, causing thousands of infections and hundreds of deaths, respectively. Currently, a novel coronavirus (SARS‐CoV‐2), which has become the cause of the outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID‐19), was discovered. Until 18 February 2020, there were 72 533 confirmed COVID‐19 cases (including 10 644 severe cases) and 1872 deaths in China. SARS‐CoV‐2 is spreading among the public and causing substantial burden due to its human‐to‐human transmission. However, the intermediate host of SARS‐CoV‐2 is still unclear. Finding the possible intermediate host of SARS‐CoV‐2 is imperative to prevent further spread of the epidemic. In this study, we used systematic comparison and analysis to predict the interaction between the receptor‐binding domain (RBD) of coronavirus spike protein and the host receptor, angiotensin‐converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). The interaction between the key amino acids of S protein RBD and ACE2 indicated that, other than pangolins and snakes, as previously suggested, turtles (Chrysemys picta bellii, Chelonia mydas, and Pelodiscus sinensis) may act as the potential intermediate hosts transmitting SARS‐CoV‐2 to humans.
Highlights
• The critical residues of S protein RBD binding with ACE2 indicated the potential intermediate hosts transmitting SARS‐CoV‐2 to humans.
In 1997, noting that the 50th anniversary of the publication of “Coefficient Alpha and the Internal Structure of Tests” was fast approaching, Lee Cronbach planned what have become the notes published here. His aimwas to point out theways in which his views on coefficient alpha had evolved, doubting nowthat the coefficientwas the bestway of judging the reliability of an instrument to which it was applied. Tracing in these notes, in vintage Cronbach style, his thinking before, during, and after the publication of the alpha paper, his “current thoughts” on coefficient alpha are that alpha covers only a small perspective of the range of measurement uses for which reliability information is needed and that it should be viewed within a much larger system of reliability analysis, generalizability theory.
The rapid worldwide spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome demonstrated the potential threat an infectious disease poses in a closely interconnected and interdependent world. Here we introduce a probabilistic model that describes the worldwide spread of infectious diseases and demonstrate that a forecast of the geographical spread of epidemics is indeed possible. This model combines a stochastic local infection dynamics among individuals with stochastic transport in a worldwide network, taking into account national and international civil aviation traffic. Our simulations of the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak are in surprisingly good agreement with published case reports. We show that the high degree of predictability is caused by the strong heterogeneity of the network. Our model can be used to predict the worldwide spread of future infectious diseases and to identify endangered regions in advance. The performance of different control strategies is analyzed, and our simulations show that a quick and focused reaction is essential to inhibiting the global spread of epidemics.
Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) are a significant burden on global economies and public health. Their emergence is thought to be driven largely by socio-economic, environmental and ecological factors, but no comparative study has explicitly analysed these linkages to understand global temporal and spatial patterns of EIDs. Here we analyse a database of 335 EID 'events' (origins of EIDs) between 1940 and 2004, and demonstrate non-random global patterns. EID events have risen significantly over time after controlling for reporting bias, with their peak incidence (in the 1980s) concomitant with the HIV pandemic. EID events are dominated by zoonoses (60.3% of EIDs): the majority of these (71.8%) originate in wildlife (for example, severe acute respiratory virus, Ebola virus), and are increasing significantly over time. We find that 54.3% of EID events are caused by bacteria or rickettsia, reflecting a large number of drug-resistant microbes in our database. Our results confirm that EID origins are significantly correlated with socio-economic, environmental and ecological factors, and provide a basis for identifying regions where new EIDs are most likely to originate (emerging disease 'hotspots'). They also reveal a substantial risk of wildlife zoonotic and vector-borne EIDs originating at lower latitudes where reporting effort is low. We conclude that global resources to counter disease emergence are poorly allocated, with the majority of the scientific and surveillance effort focused on countries from where the next important EID is least likely to originate.
The current outbreak of viral pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, China, was caused by a novel coronavirus designated 2019‐nCoV by the World Health Organization, as determined by sequencing the viral RNA genome. Many initial patients were exposed to wildlife animals at the Huanan seafood wholesale market, where poultry, snake, bats, and other farm animals were also sold. To investigate possible virus reservoir, we have carried out comprehensive sequence analysis and comparison in conjunction with relative synonymous codon usage (RSCU) bias among different animal species based on the 2019‐nCoV sequence. Results obtained from our analyses suggest that the 2019‐nCoV may appear to be a recombinant virus between the bat coronavirus and an origin‐unknown coronavirus. The recombination may occurred within the viral spike glycoprotein, which recognizes a cell surface receptor. Additionally, our findings suggest that 2019‐nCoV has most similar genetic information with bat coronovirus and most similar codon usage bias with snake. Taken together, our results suggest that homologous recombination may occur and contribute to the 2019‐nCoV cross‐species transmission.
Research Highlights
• Taken together, our results suggest that homologous recombination may occur and contribute to the 2019‐nCoV cross‐species transmission.
This paper presents a summarized description of the background, objectives, study design, and data quality assessment of the 1998 Chinese Healthy Longevity Survey. The initial findings on the specific topic of active vs. disabled life expectancies are also presented in this paper. Various measurements have indicated that age-reporting and other aspects of the data quality of our 1998 survey are generally good. Based on data on Activities of Daily Living (ADL) collected from 2,274 centenarians, 3,035 nonagenarians, and 3,496 octogenarians in the 1998 survey, the oldest old living in rural China are more likely to be active in daily living throughout their remaining life than their urban counterparts. A higher percentage of elderly men maintain an active lifestyle than women, although women have a longer total life expectancy. Some explanations on such interesting rural-urban and gender differentials are discussed.
Questionnaires, or social surveys, are used increasingly as a means of collecting data in ecology. We present a critical review of their use and give recommendations for good practice.
We searched for papers in which questionnaires were used in 57 ecological academic journals, published over the period 1991–2003 inclusive. This provided a total sample size of 168 questionnaires from 127 papers published in 22 academic journals.
Most questionnaires were carried out in North America and western Europe, and addressed species‐level issues, principally focusing on mammals. The majority were concerned with impacts of species and/or their conservation, and just under half with human–wildlife interactions.
Postal survey was the method used most frequently to carry out the questionnaires, followed by in‐person interviews. Some questionnaires were conducted by telephone, and none was web‐based.
Most questionnaires were concerned with obtaining factual information or perceptions of facts. Ground‐truthing (independent verification of the facts) was carried out in less than 10% of questionnaires.
The mean (± SE) sample size (number of respondents) per questionnaire was 1422 ± 261 and the average (± SE) response rate was 63 ± 3%. These figures varied widely depending on the methods used to conduct the questionnaire.
The analysis of data was mostly descriptive. Simple univariate methods were the most frequently used statistical tools, and data from a third of questionnaires were not subjected to any analysis beyond simple descriptions of the results.
Synthesis and applications. We provide recommendations for best practice in the future use of questionnaires in ecology, as follows: (i) the definition of the target population, any hypotheses to be tested and procedures for the selection of participants should be clearly documented; (ii) questionnaires should be piloted prior to their use; (iii) the sample size should be sufficient for the statistical analysis; (iv) the rationale for the choice of survey method should be clearly stated; (v) the number of non‐respondents should be minimized; (vi) the question and answer format should be kept as simple as possible; (vii) the structure of the questionnaire and the data emerging from it should be unambiguously shown in any publication; (viii) bias arising from non‐response should be quantified; (ix) the accuracy of data should be assessed by ground‐truthing where relevant; (x) the analysis of potentially interrelated data should be done by means of modelling. Researchers should also consider whether alternative, interpretative methods, such as in‐depth interviews or participatory approaches, may be more appropriate, for example where the focus is on elucidating motivations or perceptions rather than testing factual hypotheses.
A general formula (α) of which a special case is the Kuder-Richardson coefficient of equivalence is shown to be the mean of
all split-half coefficients resulting from different splittings of a test. α is therefore an estimate of the correlation between
two random samples of items from a universe of items like those in the test. α is found to be an appropriate index of equivalence
and, except for very short tests, of the first-factor concentration in the test. Tests divisible into distinct subtests should
be so divided before using the formula. The index
[`(r)]ij\bar r_{ij}
, derived from α, is shown to be an index of inter-item homogeneity. Comparison is made to the Guttman and Loevinger approaches.
Parallel split coefficients are shown to be unnecessary for tests of common types. In designing tests, maximum interpretability
of scores is obtained by increasing the first-factor concentration in any separately-scored subtest and avoiding substantial
group-factor clusters within a subtest. Scalability is not a requisite.
This paper addresses the lack of empirical evaluation of the use of web based surveys in the context of contingent valuation surveys. We compare, using a case study, in-person interviews with web based surveys regarding response rate, information additivity effects and respondents' attitudes towards paying. The web based survey had a much lower response (5.1%) than the in-person interviewing (84%). We find the web based contingent valuation surveys to be neither more susceptible to information additivity effects nor more prone to zero protest responses. We conclude in favor of the use of web based surveys, namely in Portugal, where the number of Internet users is rapidly increasing, although further research efforts are required on their use.