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:
- "I think, especially considering the fact that there has never been a pandemic like this before and it's all very difficult to plan with so many individual interests, that the federal government, both the old and the new federal government, has always kept a cool head. Maybe in retrospect it could have made one or two decisions differently, but from an ex-ante point of view, I thought the federal government reacted very well." (TP02, response: scale score 9)
- "Because I thought the actions were good. I would have ticked 10 if masks were still mandatory, especially in the supermarket. I would have liked that. But otherwise, with all the rules that were there, I was satisfied. It worked for us and that's why it got an 8." (TP07, response: scale value 8)
- "Basically, I thought it was okay what was decided at the individual points in time. What I was not so satisfied with now were these different country orders. Because at that time I was working in [CITY] and my husband in [CITY]. And I couldn't quite understand that different things applied." (TP08, response: scale score 7)
- "A lot of what the government did didn't work. But a lot of things have. I just think all the lockdowns and stuff, they haven't really done anything now, they've done more harm too." (TP10, response: scale score 6)
- "We still have Corona, the virus is still there. I don't like all the relaxations that are going on now. It's too early in my opinion. [...] For me, this is part of the Corona measures, these are protective measures. And now all the relaxations, somehow, that comes too soon for me." (TP03, response: scale value 5)
- "Because in retrospect you saw that a lot of things they did, like curfews, lockdowns, masks, didn't actually do anything. Because no matter what they did, it never really got much better. Maybe it helped a little bit with some things, hence the 1 and not the 0. Of course, I didn't notice everything. But the things that I did notice, all the things that were done, in my opinion didn't really help to contain the pandemic in any way." (TP12, response: scale value 1)
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:
- "I was thinking more along the lines of the last few months. Not the whole two years completely, because at the beginning I found it a bit chaotic. But then I found it getting better and better." (TP07, response: scale score 8)
- "Since the beginning of 2021 approximately. Because I had just started my training then. There was still the lockdown, where we could no longer go to work and the whole thing was with online lessons. And that was a bit new at the beginning." (TP10, response: scale value 6)
- "To the period when the incidences declined and the restaurateurs were not allowed to open. With that, a great many, including those in my circle of acquaintances, went bankrupt and are now faced with nothing. Now that the incidences have risen, before the many relaxations came, they were allowed to open, strangely enough, and I just can't understand that." (TP11, response: scale score 5)
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.
