Methodological analysis of the questions about income. communicative failures as quality indicators

Abstract

The article provides the results of the methodological study based on the telephone survey "Monitoring salaries, poverty and social inequality". Twenty-three questions concerning the income and financial well-being are analyzed in the study. The purpose of the study is to assess the quality of the questions about the income and to choose the most relevant ones to use in mass surveys. Based on the cognitive coding of 41 interviews, three common shifts (communicative failures) were singled out. All of them are considered as indicators of quality. The indicators` frequency helps to determine the weak points in the questionnaire. Besides, the author detects five questions about the income which are hard for respondent to perceive; these questions are not recommended to use in mass surveys.