Question Wording Research Articles

LEXICAL AND POST-LEXICAL PROSODIC DOCUMENTATION OF EMBALOH LANGUAGE

This research investigated the prosody of the Embaloh language, which has yet to be widely explored, to document and preserve the language. The method used is data collection of spontaneous and non-spontaneous speeches from 12 native speakers. Prosodic analysis was then carried out based on visualising and observing speech sound waves using the autosegmental-metrical theory (AM) framework. The results show that prominence tends to be on the right edge at both lexical and post-lexical prosodic levels. The findings show that the Embaloh language is outside the mainstream of Austronesian languages, which places word stress at the penultimate syllable. At the post-lexical level in interrogative intonation, phrases with a question word are marked by the pitch accent located at the target question word in the nuclear contour of the phrase. The pitch accent follows the position of the question word in the intonation phrase, forward or backward, with one of the following tones: H* (high), LH* (low-high), or LHL* (low-high-low). The intonation of the question is indicated by the H(high) tone at the end of the phrase. The H (high) tone also acts as a boundary tone represented by H*% (high).

Language and LGBTQ Politics: The Effect of Changing Group Labels on Public Attitudes

The labels used to describe sexual and gender minorities in the U.S. have shifted over time and become increasingly inclusive. Movement organizations have changed from describing the “lesbian, gay, and bisexual” (“LGB”) community to adding transgender (“LGBT”) and then also queer (“LGBTQ”) identities. Do these different labels affect public views of the group and support for their rights? I embedded a question wording experiment in a statewide survey, asking respondents about either LGB, LGBT, or LGBTQ people. The labels had no discernible effect on (1) support for requiring businesses to serve the group; nor (2) views of the group’s political leanings. There is no evidence that ideology and partisanship moderated these null effects: liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, were unaffected by the changing designations. This suggests public attitudes are not contingent on how the LGBTQ community is labelled, a finding with implications both for movement organizations and survey researchers.

A Longitudinal Corpus Analysis of the Quantity, Syntactic, and Lexical Characteristics of Maternal and Paternal Parentese

ABSTRACT Research on parentese, the acoustically exaggerated, slower, and higher-pitched speech directed toward infants, has mostly focused on maternal contributions, although it has long been known that fathers also produce parentese. Given recent societal changes in family dynamics, it is necessary to revise these mother-centered models of language input. Using a longitudinal dataset of daylong recordings collected with the same group of USA-born English-speaking infants (N = 21) at 6, 10, 14, 18, and 24 months, we investigate the similarities and differences between maternal and paternal parentese quantity, as well syntactic and lexical characteristics of parentese. We find that mothers are producing quantitatively more parentese than fathers at all ages. We find that the syntactic aspects do not differ substantially between mothers and fathers, however lexical differences do emerge. Specifically, we see that mothers may use more question and mental state words than fathers. Furthermore, use of these types of words increase as the child develops. This research highlight the continued need to further study fathers in order to have a full understanding of child language development.

A <i>wh</i> discourse particle: Dutch <i>hoezo</i>

This paper provides an analysis of a special kind of why-questions in Dutch, formed with the wh-word hoezo (lit. ‘how so’). We propose that hoezo signals the speaker’s resistance to updating the discourse model, by asking the interlocutor to provide a reason for their preceding discourse move. Hoezo shares properties with both discourse particles (its not-at-issue content expresses the speaker’s attitude towards the current state of the discourse), and question words (it asks the interlocutor to provide a reason). Unlike waarom (the regular word for ‘why’), hoezo is not subject to wh-movement and does not bind a variable.

Loyalties and interests: How political motivations influence voters’ responses to scandals

Scandals have always been a highly salient problem in politics. In judging politicians for their misconduct, voters may arguably be biased – they may evaluate scandals based on individual motivations, such as partisanship and self-interested concerns. In this paper, we examine these two considerations in the case of two real-world corruption scandals involving a single incumbent government. In addition to testing for the effects of partisan motivations in authentic situations, we consider how scandals associated with policy goals interact with personal motivations, shaping the degree to which people penalize a scandalous government. Across two survey experiments that prime respondents about real-world corruption scandals, we manipulate question wording for some participants and measure their evaluations of a scandalous leader's performance. We find an effect for self-interested concerns when the benefits associated with the scandal are concentrated and tangible. Our findings suggest that voters hold public figures accountable for misbehaviour and that there are limits to partisan loyalties in political scandals.

Detecting Respondent Burden in Online Surveys: How Different Sources of Question Difficulty Influence Cursor Movements

Online surveys are a widely used mode of data collection. However, as no interviewer is present, respondents face any difficulties they encounter alone, which may lead to measurement error and biased or (at worst) invalid conclusions. Detecting response difficulty is therefore vital. Previous research has predominantly focused on response times to detect general response difficulty. However, response difficulty may stem from different sources, such as overly complex wording or similarity between response options. So far, the question of whether indicators can discriminate between these sources has not been addressed. The goal of the present study, therefore, was to evaluate whether specific characteristics of participants’ cursor movements are related to specific properties of survey questions that increase response difficulty. In a preregistered online experiment, we manipulated the length of the question text, the complexity of the question wording, and the difficulty of the response options orthogonally between questions. We hypothesized that these changes would lead to increased response times, hovers (movement pauses), and y-flips (changes in vertical movement direction), respectively. As expected, each manipulation led to an increase in the corresponding measure, although the other dependent variables were affected as well. However, the strengths of the effects did differ as expected between the mouse-tracking indices: Hovers were more sensitive to complex wording than to question difficulty, while the opposite was true for y-flips. These results indicate that differentiating sources of response difficulty might indeed be feasible using mouse-tracking.

Between prudence and selfishness. Pooling the polls on what Italians think of the Ukraine war

ABSTRACT This article provides a systematic overview of what Italians think of the war in Ukraine, relying on an analysis of the polls conducted over the first 17 months of the conflict. Italians are worried about the war but the issue is not a priority. Most Italians blame Russia, but they do so to a lesser extent than do other Europeans and the assigned responsibility is affected by the question wording. Only a minority favours arms shipments to Ukraine. Survey data record a higher level of support for imposing sanctions than for sending weapons, but also a slight decline in support for sanctions over the period. Since Italians do not expect either side to win the war, they foresee that it will end with sacrifices on the part of Ukraine.

Validating the “Genuine Pipeline” to Limit Social Desirability Bias in Survey Estimates of Voter Turnout

Abstract It is well documented that survey overreporting of voter turnout due to social desirability bias threatens inference about political behavior. This paper reports four studies that contained question wording experiments to test questions designed to minimize that bias using a “pipeline” approach. The “pipeline” informs survey participants that researchers can perform vote validation to verify turnout self-reports. This approach reduced self-reported turnout by 5.7 points in the 2020 American National Election Study, which represents a majority of the estimated overreporting bias. It reduced reported turnout by 4 points in two nonprobability samples. No effect was found in a third nonprobability study with Amazon Mechanical Turk workers. Validated vote data also confirm that the pipeline approach reduced overreporting. We tested heterogeneous effects for sophistication and several other variables, but results were inconclusive. The pipeline approach reduces overreporting of voter turnout and produces more accurate estimates of voters’ characteristics.

Sample, time, and wording effects on estimating the prevalence of childfree adults: Insights from Japan.

Childfree adults neither have nor want children, but estimates of their prevalence vary widely, leading to ambiguity about how common this family status actually is. The goal of this study is to examine the effects of sample composition, time, and question wording on estimates of the prevalence of childfree adults. We pool 83 nationally representative estimates of the prevalence of childfree adults in Japan since 2000 using meta-regression to identify the influence of sex, marital status, year, and survey question. Prevalence estimates are higher when computed from samples of women than men, from samples of singles than married people, from samples collected more recently, and from surveys asking questions about expectations than wants. Most of the variation in estimates of the prevalence of childfree adults can be attributed to differences in sample composition, time, and question wording. Taking these factors into account, we estimate that over 2.5 million Japanese adults age 18-50, or 5.64% of this population, were childfree in 2020.

Diachronic evolution of the subordinator kak in Russian

Abstract In Russian, the subordinator kak ‘how’ is both a manner question word and an eventive complementizer. The Russian linguistic tradition explains the colexification of the two functions in terms of a semantic shift from manner as characteristic of a situation to event description as a whole. Alternatively, a grammaticalization scenario from manner complements to event/propositional complements has been suggested: manner complements originally have a propositional frame, which is foregrounded concurrently with the loss of the manner meaning, giving rise to both eventive and propositional interpretations. This article is aimed at testing both hypotheses. We study several large Old Russian manuscripts, starting from the first available documents of the 11th century, and show that at the earliest documented period Old Russian kako/kakъ could be used in all types of complement clauses. It could introduce eventive, propositional, manner and irrealis purposive-like complements. Accordingly, the evolution of the subordinator kak in complementation involves a narrowing of its functional domain. We classify Old Russian texts based on the period and trace the gradual loss of particular functions during the centuries. Thus, we show that the Russian data supports the second grammaticalization scenario.

The Relationship Between Job Satisfaction and Employee Loyalty: Case of Teaching-Researcher Staff

Employee loyalty is an important determinant of business productivity and management effectiveness, and its decline can cause organisational deviance, reputational losses, counterproductive behaviour of staff, reduced manageability, and, ultimately, increased staff turnover and loss of key employees. The article proposes and empirically confirms two hypotheses: 1) a significant relationship between job satisfaction and employee loyalty; 2) job satisfaction directly affects the employee’s intention to leave the organisation. These hypotheses were tested on the example of academic staff of different universities in Algeria. For this purpose, a random sample was formed, the reliable representativeness of which corresponds to the general population in terms of age, gender and length of service of respondents (500 questionnaires were randomly distributed, 329 of which were approved for analysis, i.e. the share of respondents who agreed to participate in the survey is 65.8%). The Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (a short version of 20 job facets with a five-modality measurement scale) was chosen as the basis for the study of job satisfaction, which was improved by removing and adding individual items and adjusting the wording of individual questions. The validity and reliability of the scales measuring job satisfaction and employee intentions to leave the organisation are high (Cronbach’s alpha is 0.91 and 0.81, respectively). The data was analysed using the statistical software SPSS. V.27, and several statistical methods and tests (Cronbach’s alpha, ANOVA, regression analysis, etc.) were used to test the hypotheses. The study has shown that job satisfaction is significantly related to an employee’s intention to voluntarily leave the organisation: (β = -0.547, p < 0.000), (F = 19,357, p < 0.000). Job satisfaction explains 29.9% of the variance in intentions to leave voluntarily. Job satisfaction has a direct impact on reducing voluntary turnover. This relationship is negative and significant. A moderate direct relationship between employee loyalty and job satisfaction has been confirmed (correlation coefficient R=0.547 is positive), i.e. the higher the job satisfaction, the more loyal employees are to the institution where they work.

Measuring Community Response to Noise-Factors Affecting the Results of Annoyance Surveys.

Social surveys are conducted to determine how annoyed people are in a certain noise situation. The results are typically presented as exposure-response curves showing the percentage of the area population that are highly annoyed as a function of the noise exposure level. It is a well-known fact that the survey results are not only dependent on the accumulated noise exposure, DNL, DENL, or similar, but also on various other factors such as maximum levels, exposure patterns, noise spectra, etc. A re-analysis of previously reported surveys shows that the results are also, to a large extent, dependent on survey-specific factors like the wording of the annoyance questions, how the questionnaires are presented, response scales, methods of scoring highly annoyed, etc. This paper discusses and quantifies the influence of such factors and suggests ways of comparing results from surveys that have been conducted according to different protocols and different analysis methods.

How Valid Are Trust Survey Measures? New Insights From Open-Ended Probing Data and Supervised Machine Learning

Trust is a foundational concept of contemporary sociological theory. Still, empirical research on trust relies on a relatively small set of measures. These are increasingly debated, potentially undermining large swathes of empirical evidence. Drawing on a combination of open-ended probing data, supervised machine learning, and a U.S. representative quota sample, our study compares the validity of standard measures of generalized social trust with more recent, situation-specific measures of trust. We find that survey measures that refer to “strangers” in their question wording best reflect the concept of generalized trust, also known as trust in unknown others. While situation-specific measures should have the desirable property of further reducing variation in associations, that is, producing more similar frames of reference across respondents, they also seem to increase associations with known others, which is undesirable. In addition, we explore to what extent trust survey questions may evoke negative associations. We find that there is indeed variation across measures, which calls for more research.

Middle English fobbere and the Critical Editing of Piers Plowman

ABSTRACT This essay examines a line in William Langland's Piers Plowman that caused the scribes considerable trouble and which involves the synonymous Middle English hapax legomena fob and fobbere. The word in question appears to differ across the three versions of the poem, “A,” “B,” and “C.” The particular textual crux opens onto a general dilemma that faces Langland's modern editors. Editors of Piers Plowman have constantly to decide whether, and to what extent, to admit into evidence the testimony of parallel versions when editing any one version. Against the drift of a tendency toward parallel editing in the poem's twentieth-century reception, it is argued that the critical editing of Piers Plowman sometimes must involve holding at arm’s length the apparently relevant testimony of parallel versions.

Autocorrect of a Word in a Sentence using Text Feature Analysis with Natural Language Processing

In text editing software, auto-correct is a crucial tool that helps users correct spelling mistakes and improve the grammatical accuracy of their written content. The unique method for auto-correction proposed in this paper combines test feature analysis with natural language processing (NLP). The algorithm makes use of NLP techniques to examine the original sentence's context and spot any potential mistakes. After that, it runs a number of tests to produce correction suggestions for the word in question. This strategy is predicated on the idea that test characteristics like word frequency, word length, and part of speech can be utilized to distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate word patterns. The efficiency of the suggested strategy in correctly correcting words inside a phrase is shown by experimental findings.

Interrogatives of reason in Tibeto-Burman languages of Sichuan

Abstract This is a typological study of the why-interrogative expressions in Tibeto-Burman languages, or the non-Chinese Sino-Tibetan languages, in Sichuan, southwest China. After examining 22 languages/dialects, the interrogative category of reason is grouped into three types, viz. the distinct why-type, the how-type, and the what-type, according to the interrogative categories from which they are derived. It is discovered that the what-type is the dominant strategy for languages in Sichuan to derive the reason category. It is also common for Tibeto-Burman languages to use verbal interrogatives, namely interrogative verb phrases and interrogative words with verbal origins, dominantly in the sense of ‘to do what’ and ‘to become what’, to ask for reason. After a focused investigation of the verbal interrogatives, it is found that Tibeto-Burman languages in Sichuan distinguish purpose from cause via word/phrase distinction, sentential positions and semantic differences. A path of grammaticalization of the verbal interrogatives is thus proposed and analyzed. Finally, the derivation maps of interrogatives in Cysouw (2005) and Hölzl (2018) are complemented with a refined distinction between purpose and cause.

Linguo-Pedagogical Design of Open Question Items in the Context of Digitalization

Interdisciplinary approach to the development and creation of open question items for assessment procedures in accordance with the digital transformation strategy and the new requirements for state accreditation of educational programs of higher education has been presented in the article. It has been revealed the content of the author’s terms including linguo-pedagogical mastery, linguo-pedagogical design, linguistic correctness and methodological literacy of test tasks. On the basis of scientometric analysis carried out due to the scientific electronic library elibrary it has been determined the chronological activity and subject correlation of publications of native researchers on testing students. Based on the results of a survey of teachers from 11 regional universities the main difficulties in the preparation of testing and assessment materials are summarized. Examples of test items in disciplines taught at a multidisciplinary polytechnic university are analyzed. Typical errors in the wording of questions, reference answers and evaluation criteria have been identified by the methods of erratological analysis and the reasons for their appearance have been summarized. To model the linguo-pedagogical design of test tasks the concept of an epistemic situation is used, its four components are described: ontological (subject-content definition of objects and elements of control), methodological (selection of types and types of tasks depending on the level of measured outcomes of learning), communicative-pragmatic (ensuring the comprehensibility of the text of the test task) and technological (technical implementation of the automated check of free response). Methods of test tasks modification with the help of modern digital services are proposed. As a result of the study, the authors formulate recommendations for the implementation of the linguo-pedagogical design of open question items with a focus on their implementation in the digital environment.

Both teacher and guide, or On the meaning of the word nastavnik (tutor) in the 18th century

In the article we make an attempt to describe one of the semantic aspects of the word nastavnik in the18th century Russian language. Using text sources we demonstrate that in the 18th century the word in question was till somehow related to the idea of a guide, pathfinder, fellow traveler, which had been characteristic of its earlier occurences. This fact is particularly well documented in religious writings as well as in translations and bilingual dictionaries. Nevertheless, secular non-lexicographic text monuments of the time also feature some of the examples in question. We also claim that the semantic structure of the corresponding article in the "Dictionary of the 18th century Russian language "should be revised in order to include the aforementioned component of meaning.

Eliciting Risk Perceptions: Does Conditional Question Wording Have a Downside?

To assess the impact of risk perceptions on prevention efforts or behavior change, best practices involve conditional risk measures, which ask people to estimate their risk contingent on a course of action (e.g., "if not vaccinated"). To determine whether the use of conditional wording-and its drawing of attention to one specific contingency-has an important downside that could lead researchers to overestimate the true relationship between perceptions of risk and intended prevention behavior. In an online experiment, US participants from Amazon's MTurk (N = 750) were presented with information about an unfamiliar fungal disease and then randomly assigned among 3 conditions. In all conditions, participants were asked to estimate their risk for the disease (i.e., subjective likelihood) and to decide whether they would get vaccinated. In 2 conditional-wording conditions (1 of which involved a delayed decision), participants were asked about their risk if they did not get vaccinated. For an unconditional/benchmark condition, this conditional was not explicitly stated but was still formally applicable because participants had not yet been informed that a vaccine was even available for this disease. When people gave risk estimates to a conditionally worded risk question after making a decision, the observed relationship between perceived risk and prevention decisions was inflated (relative to in the unconditional/benchmark condition). The use of conditionals in risk questions can lead to overestimates of the impact of perceived risk on prevention decisions but not necessarily to a degree that should call for their omission. Conditional wording, which is commonly recommended for eliciting risk perceptions, has a potential downside.It can produce overestimates of the true relationship between perceived risk and prevention behavior, as established in the current work.Though concerning, the biasing effect of conditional wording was small-relative to the measurement benefits that conditioning usually provides-and should not deter researchers from conditioning risk perceptions.More research is needed to determine when the biasing impact of conditional wording is strongest.

Performance of ChatGPT incorporated chain-of-thought method in bilingual nuclear medicine physician board examinations.

This research explores the performance of ChatGPT, compared to human doctors, in bilingual, Mandarin Chinese and English, medical specialty exam in Nuclear Medicine in Taiwan. The study employed generative pre-trained transformer (GPT-4) and integrated chain-of-thoughts (COT) method to enhance performance by triggering and explaining the thinking process to answer the question in a coherent and logical manner. Questions from the Taiwanese Nuclear Medicine Specialty Exam served as the basis for testing. The research analyzed the correctness of AI responses in different sections of the exam and explored the influence of question length and language proportion on accuracy. AI, especially ChatGPT with COT, exhibited exceptional capabilities in theoretical knowledge, clinical medicine, and handling integrated questions, often surpassing, or matching human doctor performance. However, AI struggled with questions related to medical regulations. The analysis of question length showed that questions within the 109-163 words range yielded the highest accuracy. Moreover, an increase in the proportion of English words in questions improved both AI and human accuracy. This research highlights the potential and challenges of AI in the medical field. ChatGPT demonstrates significant competence in various aspects of medical knowledge. However, areas like medical regulations require improvement. The study also suggests that AI may help in evaluating exam question difficulty and maintaining fairness in examinations. These findings shed light on AI role in the medical field, with potential applications in healthcare education, exam preparation, and multilingual environments. Ongoing AI advancements are expected to further enhance AI utility in the medical domain.