The vignette study for the analysis of labor recruitment: a critical perspective
Abstract
A vignette study is, in essence, an ad hoc survey designed to evaluate fictitious scenarios on the part of respondents, so that opinions or attitudes can be inferred from such an evaluation that are not usually revealed in traditional surveys. Its main advantages are twofold: firstly, that, by virtue of the survey design, existing correlations between variables that always occur in real populations are eliminated and the effects of these variables can be better disentangled; and secondly, that respondents respond indirectly to the research questions, so this technique tries to eliminate social desirability biases. After reviewing the basic characteristics of the technique, the article considers its usefulness from a critical point of view in relation to the following aspects: social desirability biases; the fact of posing hypothetical situations and not analysing real behaviour and, above all, the external validity when applied to very specific groups (or the extent to which research results can be generalized).
Keywords
vignette, vignette studies, discrimination, gender, internal validity, external validity, factorial surveys, factorial studyReferences
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