Randomized Response Techniques to Capture Qualitative Features

Abstract

This chapter is devoted entirely to randomized response techniques which can be implemented to estimate certain parameters of a qualitative stigmatizing characteristic. Descriptions of the randomized response procedures of specific techniques are given. In particular details are provided for Warner’s, Simmon’s, Kuk’s, Christofides’, and the Forced Response randomized response techniques. For those techniques, explicit formulae are given for the various estimators of interest and measures of their accuracy, assuming that the sample is chosen according to a general sampling design. However, given that most practitioners are more familiar with simple random sampling without replacement, the formulae are explicitly stated for this particular sampling scheme as well. In addition to the numerous randomized response techniques reviewed, this chapter includes a recently developed randomized response technique which uses the Poisson distribution to estimate parameters related to a stigmatizing characteristic which is extremely rare. Furthermore, we discuss an approach using the geometric distribution to generate randomized responses. Also in this chapter, techniques dealing with multiple sensitive characteristics are described. Finally, some aspects of the Bayesian approach in analyzing randomized response data are presented along with a brief literature review on the topic.