Het probleem der neutrale categorie in het sociaal-wetenschappelijk onderzoek

Samenvatting

The neutral category ('don't know', 'no opinion') often appears in tables of sociological research, although it generally is not given much weight in the interpretation of the results. Johan Galtung (Theory and methods of social research, London, England: 1967) has suggested that the remainder category is multidimensional, involving the amount of knowledge of the r, the evaluation of the objects, and possible difficulties with the form of the test. Galtung's scheme was incorporated into a study of attitudes on drugs. A questionnaire was administered to 1,156 persons, 50% of whom were presented with different possibilities in the remainder column; the other 50% were asked the same questions without giving precoded answers for the neutral category. When the neutral category was divided into specific possibilities, much more relevant information was obtained and the processing was simpler. 2 tables, 1 figure. P. Tiersma