Do Open-ended Questions Influence the Measurement of Attitudes? An Investigation

Measuring attitudes is gaining even more importance in travel behavior research. Previous research indicates that the open-ended questions prime closed-ended responses. In this research, we use a questionnaire that analyses the stated choice of use of autonomous vehicles (AV). Attitudes are measured using an extended version of the Technology Acceptance Model. Two questionnaire versions were used to collect data from 2000 respondents from the USA. An integrated latent variable and choice model was estimated to predict the intention to use AVs for commute trips. The models’ performance along with the estimated for the two datasets were compared.