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arXiv · 1907.04359

Democratic summary of public opinions in free-response surveys

Tatsuro Kawamoto·Takaaki Aoki
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Abstract

Social surveys have been widely used as a method of obtaining public opinion. Sometimes it is more ideal to collect opinions by presenting questions in free-response formats than in multiple-choice formats. Despite their advantages, free-response questions are rarely used in practice because they usually require manual analysis. Therefore, classification of free-format texts can present a formidable task in large-scale surveys and can be influenced by the interpretations of analysts. In this study, we propose a network-based survey framework in which responses are automatically classified in a statistically principled manner. This can be achieved because in addition to the texts, similarities among responses are also assessed by each respondent. We demonstrate our approach using a poll on the 2016 US presidential election and a survey taken by graduates of a particular university. The proposed approach helps analysts interpret the underlying semantics of responses in large-scale surveys.

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Tatsuro Kawamoto, Takaaki Aoki. 2019-07-09. Democratic summary of public opinions in free-response surveys. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42256-019-0071-y

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