How should we sensitively ask about sex, gender, and ethnicity in our experiments?These are nuanced topics and (of course) the way you do it will depend on the research question you’re asking. The 2020 E&D Committee put together a few example ways of phrasing things that seemed to minimize offence (insofar as we can tell) and increase the chances that someone will want to take part in your experiment. The key takeaways from our discussion were to include ‘prefer not to say’ as well as ‘other’ options, and also (in the case of ethnicity) allow selection of as many options as possible for each question. Please feel free to use, modify, or suggest some better ones!
Example sex, gender, and ethnicity questions for demographic questionnaires
Example introductory statement:
The following section includes some questions about your background and demographics. These questions may not seem particularly relevant to the research tasks that you completed today. However, knowing the demographics of the people who take part in our research helps us understand who our participant sample represents. This is important in understanding the extent to which our findings might be specific to certain groups of people (e.g., undergraduate students), or whether they might generalise to wider populations. Collecting these data are part of our efforts to increase diversity within our research participant samples. Please note that these questions are optional, and you are free to leave them blank if you would prefer not to answer. As with all other data you have provided today, your answers will be anonymised and kept securely.
Example questions:
What is your gender?
- Woman
- Man
- Non-binary
- Other (please describe):
- Prefer not to say
Is your gender the same as your sex assigned at birth?
- Yes
- No
- Prefer not to say
Which categories describe you? Select all that apply to you:
- American Indian, Alaskan Native, Aboriginal Australians, Maori – for example, Navajo Nation, Blackfeet Tribe, Mayan, Aztec, Native Village of Barrow Inupiat Traditional Government, Nome Eskimo Community, Anindilyakwa, Arrernte, Bininj, Gunggari, Muruwari.
- Asian – for example, Chinese, Filipino, Asian Indian, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese
- Black or African American – for example, Jamaican, Haitian, Nigerian, Ethiopian, Somalian
- Latino/Latina/Latinx – for example, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Salvadoran, Dominican, Columbian
- Middle Eastern or North African – for example, Lebanese, Iranian, Egyptian, Syrian, Moroccan, Algerian
- Pacific Islanders – for example, Native Hawaiian, Samoan, Chamorro, Tongan, Fijian, Marshallese
- White – for example, German, Irish, English, Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish, British, Traveller, Italian, French
- Other ethnicity or origin (please describe):
- Prefer not to say