Decision-Pathway Surveys: A Tool for Resource Managers

This paper introduces an experimental pathways survey technique that builds on insights from behavioral decision theory. The approach presents respondents with a set of linked questions that encourage the deliberate construction of expressed values in the course of selecting a preferred resource-management alternative. By selecting one pathway and avoiding others, important information is revealed about respondents' key trade-offs and about their reasoning processes. A general discussion of the approach is followed by the results of a 1994 survey in Ontario, Canada, of public support for a range of forest vegetation-management alternatives.