Survey self-assessments, reporting behaviour and the use of externally collected vignettes

AuthorsMark Harris, Rachel Knott, Paula Lorgelly, Nigel Rice
PublishedNovember 2015
PublisherBankwest Curtin Economics Centre Working Paper Series
ISBN978-1-925083-37-8
ISSN2202-2791
Number of Pages26
Number15/08

The anchoring vignette approach has grown in popularity as a method to adjust for reporting heterogeneity in subjective self-reports, removing bias due to systematic variation in reporting styles across study respondents. The use of anchoring vignettes, however, has been limited to surveys where both self-reports and vignette questions have been included. This diminishes their wider application. We illustrate, using an application to self-assessed health in a large household survey, how externally collected vignettes can be used to adjust for reporting heterogeneity in self-reports observed in datasets where vignettes have not been included. Given that self-reports to survey questions are an important facet of social research to understand differences across socio-economic groups and populations, we anticipate the approach described will lead to new applications of the anchoring vignette methodology.