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An experiment was performed to determine the bias-reducing effect of administering a social science questionnaire by computer. It was assumed-that subjects would regard typing answers directly into a computer as a situation which guaranteed them a greater sense of privacy and anonymity than the conventional situation wherein questionnaires or psychological tests are filled out by hand and then scrutinized, scored, and interpreted directly by other human beings. Based upon this assumption, two specific hypotheses were formulated: first, whenever the content of a question is regarded by a subject as highly personal and possibly disturbing, he will respond with greater honesty and candor under computer administration as opposed to conventional questionnaire administration; second, whenever an impersonal and emotionally neutral question is asked, no such difference in response tendency will occur. Results of the experiment tended to support both hypotheses.
Evan et al. (Thu,) studied this question.