Development of a social monitoring system at the local level: An experiment in the Southern Region of the Democratic Republic of Sudan

Subjective indicators of life quality are used frequently in the planning and decision making process. The limitations inherent in the use of subjective indicators often go unnoticed among those most likely to use such data in the context of planned change. We direct attention to a potential source of error in subjective evaluations of community services and facilities. Specifically, we utilize repeated measures to test for response bias that results from placing items in alternative sections of the same survey instrument. Evidence concerning the hypothesized presence of systematic bias was mixed. When overall service evaluation items were embedded within a section devoted exclusively to that service, considerable systematic bias was observed. The findings indicate that the choice of question format depends upon the ultimate use to which the data will be put.