In question 4, too, there were no respondents who left items unanswered for all three items and, as before, the entire range of the response scale was used. The majority of respondents agreed with the three statements. Agreement was particularly pronounced for items b (78%) and c (79%).
The purpose of the pretest was to investigate how the respondents justified their answers to the individual items and whether the justifications matched the selected answer option. The corresponding cognitive probes (N1_F3, see Appendix) were asked of the 124 test subjects in Group 1. About one third of these subjects were asked questions on items a, b, and c, respectively.
With the exception of a few test persons who did not give any evaluable answers to the cognitive follow-up questions, the reasons given by the respondents matched the answer they selected and no significant problems in comprehension could be identified.
| Item Text | Actively tested |
|---|---|
a. I am concerned that immigration to Europe will increase because of climate change.Item Text:Recommendations:
The results of the pretest do not indicate any problems with the item, so it can be left in its current form.
Findings:For item a, those respondents who disagreed with the statement argued that immigration is good in itself and that it occurs primarily for other reasons (e.g., wars):
Question Topic:
Environment/ Climate protection
Construct:Concerns: Impact of climate change
|
Yes |
b. I am concerned that natural disasters will increase because of climate change.Item Text:Recommendations:
The results of the pretest do not indicate any problems with the item, so it can be left in its current form.
Findings:Those respondents who disagreed with the statement mainly justified their answers by saying that natural disasters rarely or never occur where they live, or that climate change is not man-made:
Respondents who agreed with the statement justified their answers, among other things, by saying that they were already experiencing the increase and that a reversal of climate change was no longer possible:
Question Topic:
Environment/ Climate protection
Construct:Concerns: Impact of climate change
|
Yes |
c. I am concerned that the biodiversity of animals and plants will decrease because of climate change.Item Text:Recommendations:
The results of the pretest do not indicate any problems with the item, so it can be left in its current form.
Findings:For item c, disagreement with the statement was based on the fact that species extinction has always existed and that this is not related to climate change:
Respondents who agreed with the statement justified this by saying that animals could not adapt to climate change as quickly and that the extinction of species would also have an impact on humans (e.g., nutrition):
Question Topic:
Environment/ Climate protection
Construct:Concerns: Impact of climate change
|
Yes |
