FGZ Cohesion Panel: Wave 2 – Questions on climate change, antisemitism, and gender equality (English Version)

To what extent do you feel affected by infrastructure (e.g., highways, railroad tracks, power lines) where you live?

[Inwiefern fühlen Sie sich an ihrem Wohnort durch Infrastrukturen (z.B. Autobahnen, Bahngleise, Stromtrassen) beeinträchtigt ?]

0 Not affected at all [Überhaupt nicht betroffen]
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10 Very affected [Sehr betroffen]

The test persons focused very strongly on the examples listed in parentheses when answering the questions. Thus, there is a possibility that no impairments due to other infrastructures (such as wind turbines) were reported. If, from a content perspective, there are other key infrastructures besides the three mentioned, which can be perceived as disturbing, we recommend additionally mentioning them as examples.
Since not all respondents distinguished between the response option “not affected” and “does not exist where I live” and it is questionable whether there are places of residence without any infrastructure, we recommend deleting the category “does not exist where I live“.

Cognitive Techniques:

General Probing

All 240 respondents answered question 6 using the full range of the response scale. The majority of respondents (63 %) stated that they felt little or no impairment by infrastructure at their place of residence (scale values 0 to 4). Just under 9 % opted for the mean value (scale point 5) and about 18 % reported an impairment (scale values 6 to 10). The remaining approx. 11 % of the test persons answered that there were no such infrastructures at their place of residence.
The cognitive probes were designed to investigate how the test subjects interpreted the question, which infrastructures they thought of when answering and whether the reasons for their answers matched the selected scale values in order to identify potential problems. The corresponding cognitive probe (N1_F6, see Appendix) was asked of the 116 subjects who were (randomly) assigned to Group 2. In their answers, the test persons mainly referred to the infrastructures mentioned as examples in the question text, that is, highways, railroad tracks/stations, and power lines. Only in isolated cases were impairments caused by other infrastructures such as aircraft noise, highways, wind turbines and power plants mentioned.
The reasons given by the majority of the test persons matched the scale values they selected in each case, that is, lower values on the response scale were selected by those who did not feel disturbed by the infrastructures mentioned or rather considered them necessary, higher values by those who felt impaired by them:

• "The train station and the highway nearby are useful. I do not feel negatively affected by them." (TP422, scale value: 0)
• "I don't mind the existing infrastructure. If anything, there should be more railroad tracks and power lines." (TP395, scale value: 2)
• "Streetcars pass right in front of my apartment and make for shaky walls in addition to con-siderable noise." (TP278, scale value: 7)
• "High noise pollution at night from the A6." (TP279, scale value: 10)

Test persons who selected the residual category "Does not exist where I live" argued for the most part that they lived in the country and that such infrastructures did not exist where they lived. However, the same reasons were also given by some respondents (n = 5) who selected a (low) scale value:

• "I live in a small village, there is nothing here except a few houses. And twice [a day] the school bus goes." (TP517; response: does not exist where I live).
• "Where I live, there are no highways or railroad tracks or power lines going by." (TP231, scale value: 0)
• "Because none of these exist near where I live." (TP460, scale value: 0)
• "I don't live near highways, power lines, or railroad tracks, so I'm not affected by them." (TP 484, scale value: 0)

This means that these respondents did not reliably distinguish between “not affected” and “does not exist where I live”.

Society & social affairs/ Residing & living

Undesirable infrastructures