Gaining valid answers to so-called sensitive questions is an age-old problem in survey research. Various techniques have been developed to guarantee anonymity and minimize the respondent's feelings of jeopardy. Two such techniques are the randomized response technique (RRT) and the unmatched...

In spring 2011, the students of the University of Bern and ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) in Switzerland were invited to participate in an online survey called "Exams and written papers" ("Prüfungen und schriftliche Arbeiten an der Universität Bern" at the University of...

Self-administered online surveys provide a higher level of privacy protection to respondents than surveys administered by an interviewer. Yet, studies indicate that asking sensitive questions is problematic also in self-administered surveys. Because respondents might not be willing to reveal the...

Graphical display of regression results has become increasingly popular in presentations and the scientific literature because, in many cases, graphs are much easier to read than tables. In Stata, such plots can be produced by the marginsplot command. However, while marginsplot is very versatile...

Eliciting truthful answers to sensitive questions is an age-old problem in survey research. Respondents tend to underreport socially undesired or illegal behaviors while overreporting socially desirable ones. To combat such response bias, various techniques have been developed that are geared...

This article evaluates three different questioning techniques for measuring the prevalence of plagiarism in student papers: the randomized response technique (RRT), the item count technique (ICT), and the crosswise model (CM). In three independent experimental surveys with Swiss and German...

Least-squares regression is a major workhorse in applied research. Yet its estimates may be deemed nonrobust under various conditions. One example is heavy-tailed error distributions, in which least-squares estimation may lose its cutting edge with respect to efficiency. More importantly,...

Despite the widespread interest in the topic and a vast international literature, very little is known about the development of intergenerational mobility in Switzerland. Based on a new harmonized database for Switzerland (comprising various surveys such as different waves of the ISSP, EVS, and...