Stated and inferred attribute non-attendance in a design of designs approach

Attribute non-attendance in stated choice experiments (CE) has gained attention in literature, with some studies finding that not all respondents attend to all attributes. While the current studies show that taking non-attendance into account can significantly influence survey results, it is not yet clear what motivates respondents to ignore or pay less attention to some of the attributes. In the present study, we use 16 different split samples designed according to a design of designs plan, varying different aspects of dimensionality, i.e., the number of choice sets, the number of alternatives, or the number of attributes. Firstly, to analyse the relationship between stated attribute non-attendance and the design dimensions we test whether both are significantly associated. Secondly, we estimate equality-constrained latent class models with classes based on pre-defined rules to infer attribute non-attendance and analyse the influence of the design dimensions. Overall, the results indicate a rather weak relationship between stated or inferred attribute non-attendance and design dimensions. However, an interesting finding is that there is an association with the number of alternatives and with the number of sets.

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