Quantifying the effect of meaning variation in survey analysis

Surveys are widely conducted as a means to obtain information on thoughts, opinions and feelings of people. The representativeness of a sample is a major concern in using surveys. In this article, we consider meaning variation which is another potentially remarkable but less studied source of problems. We use Grounded Intersubjective Concept Analysis (GICA) method to quantify meaning variation and demonstrate the effect on survey analysis through a case study in which food prices and food concepts are considered.