Testing alternative questionnaire formats for communicating trade-offs in environmental Choice Modelling.

Choice Modelling is a stated preference technique for valuing non-market goods. It has the potential to provide researchers with a rich data set with which to analyse consumer trade-offs between environmental, monetary and social impacts of resource management policies. However, this strength comes at the expense of greater questionnaire complexity relative to other stated preference techniques such as Contingent Valuation. This study examines whether communication aspects of the Choice Modelling questionnaires can be improved through the use of visual stimuli. Split-sample experiments are conducted to test response differences between a ‘scaled icons’ version of the questionnaire and a conventional ‘numbers-only’ version. It is found that the different questionnaire versions do not produce significant differences in response rate or preference structures.