Efficient item count techniques with one or two lists

If the direct questioning on sensitive variables leads to non-ignorable item-nonresponse and untruthful answering, a considerably biased estimator might be the consequence. In such cases, indirect questioning designs, which protect the respondents’ privacy by masking the sensitive information, could pay off in terms of accuracy through an increased willingness to cooperate. To achieve this goal, such a design has to be simple in its implementation for the users and easy to understand for the respondents. In this article, it is shown for one of the indirect questioning designs, the item count technique, how the usage of specific oftentimes available prior information can substantially improve the estimation accuracy and at the same time reduce the respondents’ task. This can make the method a stronger and more serious competitor of the direct questioning on sensitive attributes, which is commonly used in empirical research.