The gender question and many of the other demographic questions were selected largely to ensure comparability with other surveys run by CEA.
That aside, I think your claim that open comment gender questions are “considered poor survey technique” is over-stated. The literature discusses pros and cons to both formats. From this recent article in the International Journal of Social Research Methodology:
One of the simplest ways to collect data on gender identity is to use an open text box (see
Figure 2) which allows participants the freedom to describe their gender in whatever way they
see fit while accommodating changing norms around acceptable terminology. Terms commonly used around gender evolve over time… It would therefore be misguided of researchers to attempt to find the most contemporary terminology and use it to the exclusion of all other terms. Research teams are also likely to find such a process difficult and frustrating (Herman et al., 2012). Thus, an open text box is certainly the most accommodating approach to a range of evolving terms to describe gender identity.
If open text boxes are used for research that intends to analyze by category, however,
researchers will still ultimately be categorizing the gender identities in order to define groups
for statistical analysis and groups to which the findings might be generalized… These decisions will also need to be made if researchers using a multiple-choice approach choose to provide a long list of as many gender identity terms as possible. This approach is a fine option, but researchers need to be cognisant that terminology that was in common use when a tool was published may no longer be current when research is conducted using that tool… Good arguments can be made for the value of participants being able to see the specific term for their gender identity among a list of possibilities, but even Herman’s and Kuper’s lists, published within the past decade, contain terms that are increasingly considered problematic and do not contain some terms that are more common today.
An approach which provides a smaller number of options for gender identity has benefits
and drawbacks. Providing fewer categories inevitably forces gender minority participants to
place themselves into categories that the researcher provides, but gives the advantage that the
participant, not researcher, chooses the categories in which they will be included.
Hi Dale. Thanks for your comment.
The gender question and many of the other demographic questions were selected largely to ensure comparability with other surveys run by CEA.
That aside, I think your claim that open comment gender questions are “considered poor survey technique” is over-stated. The literature discusses pros and cons to both formats. From this recent article in the International Journal of Social Research Methodology: