We recommend leaving the question as it is. Although some subjects thought only of certain periods during the Corona pandemic and only of measures taken by Chancellor Merkel's former federal government when answering the question, this is also understandable insofar as individuals were particularly affected by or particularly satisfied or dissatisfied with certain measures. The findings of the cognitive pretest suggest that question 4 is well suited to measure the intended construct.
Likewise, we recommend leaving the response scale as it is, even though one subject expressed criticism regarding its length. On the one hand, all test persons were able to locate themselves on the scale, and on the other hand, they also sorted themselves into the individual scale points in a differentiated manner.
Intention of the question:
Question 4 is designed to capture how satisfied respondents are with the actions the federal government has taken to date against the coronavirus pandemic.
Findings:
The frequency distribution of the responses is shown in table 4. All test subjects located themselves on the response scale. The majority (n = 8) stated that they were (rather) satisfied with the measures taken so far (scale values 6 to 9), two subjects chose the middle category (scale value 5) and two others stated that they were very dissatisfied (scale value 1). Except for one respondent, all respondents found it “rather easy” or “very easy” to decide on a value on the response scale. Respondent 09 stated that answering the question would have been easier with a shorter and fully verbalized scale:
“Well, I’ll say right now that it is much more difficult for me, because it is such a big range […] It took me a very long time to come up with a number. It would have been easier for me if there were only four answer options like very good, rather good, not so good, etc. instead than from 0 to 10.“
1. Do the reasons the respondents give match their answers?
In the pretest, respondents were first asked to justify why they had chosen the respective value on the response scale (N2_F4, see Appendix). The reasons given by all twelve respondents were consistent with their answers, i.e., higher scale values corresponded to greater satisfaction with the measures taken by the federal government to date, while lower values corresponded to lower satisfaction:
2. What measures are the respondents thinking of?
Eleven of the twelve repondents stated that they had thought of specific measures when answering the question. The most frequently mentioned measures were mandatory masks (8 mentions) and lockdown regulations, such as curfews and the closure of restaurants and schools (8 mentions). Mandatory vaccination (2 mentions), mandatory testing, quarantine regulations, contact restrictions, and hygiene concepts (1 mention each) were mentioned sporadically. Test person 04 had not thought of any specific measure, but of the crisis management of the federal government in general ("I have not thought of any specific measure, rather of the general. [...] How they approached the whole thing.", TP04).
3. What period of time do the test persons think of?
When answering the question, the majority of the test persons (n = 9) stated that they had thought of the period from the beginning of the pandemic (March 2020) to the present. The remaining three subjects had thought of periods when they were particularly affected by the measures or particularly satisfied or dissatisfied with them:
4. Are the respondents bothered by the fact that the question only refers to "one" or "the" federal government, since there has been a change in the federal government?
None of the twelve respondents expressed irritation with the wording of the question and the reference to "the" federal government. When asked, eight test persons said they had thought equally of measures taken by the federal government of Chancellor Merkel and Chancellor Scholz. The remaining four respondents had mainly thought of measures taken by Chancellor Merkel's federal government.
