Anonymity
A research project guarantees Anonymity when the researcher. not the people who read about just the research-cannot identify a given response heir self- arch proj with a given respondent. This implies that an interview survey respondent can never be considered re preju ie 1967), anonymous, since an interviewer collects the infor ked to mple of here that standard sampling methods are followed.) o the re- An example of anonymity is a mail survey in which hrough no identification numbers are put on the question naires before their return to the research office. and As we saw in Chapter 9 on survey research, assuring anonymity makes it difficult to keep track ng that of who has or hasn't returned the questionnaires. g to hell ondents Despite this problem, there are some situations in ain that which you may be advised to pay the necessary price. In one study of drug use among university by the students, I decided that I specifically did not want to know the identity of respondents. I felt that hon estly assuring anonymity would increase the likeli rm to hood and accuracy of responses. Also, I did not with want to be in the position of being asked by au- thorities for the names of drug offenders. In the few instances in which respondents volunteered their names, such information was immediately obliterated on the questionnaires.