Findings Cognitive Interviews:
Nine German and eight Polish respondents received this question (see Table 62). These respondents were all employees and had indicated that they had a boss in Q62.
Since the probes differed between Poland and Germany due to the different languages, the two countries were evaluated separately.
In Germany, five of the nine respondents who received this question stated that they would prefer the gender-specific wording in the statements, three respondents that they would prefer the version with double pronouns (“He/She”) and one respondent had no preference for either version.
Those who preferred the gender-specific version or who were indifferent argued that it was more personalised and more fluid to read than the other version:
- “It's easier to read with the single pronoun, but that doesn't bother me” (DE01, no preference)
- “It looks more fluid and is easier to read.” (DE02, preferred gender-specific wording)
Those who preferred the gender-neutral version (”He/She”) argued that it was more fluid to read and that if the questions/statements were worded this way throughout the questionnaire, there would be no need to ask question 62 beforehand:
- “Personally, I would prefer this variant because of the reading flow.” (DE10)
- “You should actually formulate it like that throughout. Then you don't even have to determine whether the boss is male or female.” (DE11)
In Poland, five of the eight respondents stated that they preferred the question version with no pronoun or noun as a sentence subject. Of these, two respondents stated that the version with no pronoun was simpler and sufficient. Another respondent explained that he thought the gender specific version was not necessary because:
“It is not a question of gender but function of a person which does not have any gender definition here” (PL12). The remaining two respondents explained that the grammatical structure using the noun phrase implied that there was only one employee.
Two of the eight respondents stated that they preferred the version with the noun because its presence would make it easier to understand the text and the relationship between employee and boss. One respondent (PL16) had no preferences and explained:
“It does not matter to me whether my boss is a man or a woman” (PL16).
Four Polish respondents mentioned that the term “szef/ szefowa” as “[male/female] boss” in the item text was too colloquial and should be replaced by “bezpośredni przełożony/ bezpośrednia przełożona” (direct female/male supervisor).
Summary:
- Across both countries, respondents preferred the question versions suggested during the adaptation. German respondents preferred gender-aligned wordings (because it would be more personalized and fluid to read), while Polish respondents preferred the gender-neutral wording without any personal pronoun (which is the usual way of speaking).
- In Poland, suggestions were made to use a different term for “immediate boss”.
The pretest confirms that the optimal gender-sensitive language is language-specific. In German, gender-sensitivity for this question is best achieved by using a gender-aligned wording for “[male/female/non-binary or unknown gender] boss”, while in Polish, using no pronoun is considered more appropriate and natural. For further translations, we recommend applying a translation note that the grammatically optimal sentence structure should be applied. Moreover, if different language version require different programming (i.e., because one country has two or three gender-aligned versions, whereas others only require one gender-neutral version), this must be considered early on in questionnaire programming.
We recommend checking the Polish translation of the term “immediate boss” (see also the subchapter on the translation of “manager” in chapter 2).
