Aim of the pretest:
The aim of the pretest was to find out whether respondents perceive the question as sensitive or delicate or whether they find it appropriate to be asked about their sexual orientation in an online survey. In this context, it was also investigated whether an alternative category ("No answer") should be offered or not. The sensitivity sample used (see Appendix, N1_F10) was given to all 240 respondents.
Findings:
The frequency distribution of responses to question 10 is shown in Table 13. As can be seen, the majority of respondents (96.2%) indicated their sexual orientation. One respondent selected the semi-open response category "Other sexual orientation, namely:" and entered "Nonbinary" in the open response field. Only nine respondents (3.8%) selected the fallback category "No answer.”
However, when asked cognitively how appropriate or inappropriate they thought it was to be asked this question in an online survey, 50 respondents (20.8%) said they thought it was "rather" or "very inappropriate." The reason given was that this was a sensitive question about the private sphere, which is perceived as too personal:
Further, some respondents indicated that they did not understand why the question was being asked: