Disposable question
In the field of opinion research , so-called throw-away questions are used to put the respondent in a positive mood for the survey ( icebreaker question ) or to differentiate thematically related questions from one another. Such buffers questions are to avoid spillover effects used for. B. to avoid influencing previous questions or distorting the response behavior by striving for consistency. Sometimes content-relevant questions can be used for these purposes. This is not the case with throw-away questions. They have no meaning in terms of content and are not taken into account in the subsequent evaluation, they are " thrown away" .