Telescoping
Definition
A memory error in which respondents misplace events in time, typically drawing incidents from outside the reference period into it (forward telescoping), leading to over-counting of recent crime. Forward telescoping is the more common direction.
- Field
- Victimisation surveys / memory research
- Error type
- Misplacing events in time
- Common direction
- Forward telescoping (events pulled into the reference period)
- Effect
- Over-counting of recent crime
Common questions
Why is forward telescoping more common than backward telescoping?+
Recent, salient events feel psychologically closer than they actually are, so respondents tend to recall an incident that happened before the survey's reference window as if it occurred within it, inflating counts for the recent period more often than events are mistakenly pushed backward out of it.
How do survey designers reduce telescoping error?+
Common techniques include bounding interviews, where a respondent's answers from a prior survey wave are used to flag and exclude previously reported incidents, and using landmark or event-anchored questions that help respondents place incidents more accurately in time.
Related terms
- CSEW (Crime Survey for England and Wales)
- The principal victimisation survey in England and Wales, conducted by the Office for National Statistics since 1982. Interviews around 35,000 adults annually...
- Dark Figure of Crime
- The gap between the actual volume of crime and the amount recorded in official statistics. Crimes go unrecorded when victims do not...
- NCVS (National Crime Victimization Survey)
- The principal victimisation survey in the United States, administered by the Bureau of Justice Statistics since 1973. Interviews approximately 240,000 individuals in...
- Self-Report Study
- A research method in which respondents are asked to disclose offences they have committed, whether or not those offences resulted in arrest...
- Victimisation Survey
- A survey that asks a random population sample about crimes experienced in a reference period, regardless of whether those incidents were reported...