Comparing the impact of Check‐All‐That‐Apply (CATA) and Check‐All‐Statements (CAS) question formats on “agree” responses for different consumers' age groups and genders across five countries

Abstract

Check-All-That-Apply (CATA) and Check-All-Statements (CAS) or (yes/no) question formats are used by consumer researchers but literature on the influence of those formats on responses from different consumer demographics is lacking. With CATA, consumers select all terms/statements that apply from a list while with CAS, consumers must respond (yes/no or agree/disagree) to each term/statement to show if it applies or not. Online surveys using CATA and CAS were conducted to compare the impact of the two question formats on the "agree" responses for gender and age groups (Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, Generation Z) in Brazil, China, India, Spain, and the United States. Consumers in each country were randomly assigned one of the two question formats (N = 200 per country per method). For most questions and demographic categories, the percentage of "agree" responses was higher when the CAS question format was used. Multiple Factor Analysis (MFA) showed similarities in the "big picture" information collected by CAS and CATA but differences existed in the details. The response distribution and level of detail provided by specific age groups or gender depended on which question format was used. The resulting decisions and recommendations made by researchers for demographic segments of the population could be different. Practical ApplicationsThis study suggests that CATA and CAS provide similar "big picture" information but that the details may be different when using the shortened form (CATA) of questionnaire design for some demographic sub-groups in some countries.