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Abstract
Communication through language is a very temperamental thing. The manner in
which something is said can very easily change its meaning entirely. Wording
effects, as they are known, are the effects that the framing of questions,
statements, and language in general has on responses. In this study, we examined
whether or not these effects are truly significant. We did so by randomly
testing 10th and 11th grade students from Rowland Hall –
St. Mark’s Upper School with two different questionnaires, one with wording
effects and one without such effects. The results of our study were interesting:
we obtained significant results for 6 of the 15 questions/statements on our
questionnaire. This strongly supports the premise that wording effects on
questionnaires and surveys, many of which influence public opinion, should be
more carefully examined.
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