and cultural adaptations (Bernard et al. 2004; Janzen et al. 2017, Bloem et al. 2018).<sup>5</sup> Yet, these differences can lead surveyed individuals to respond differently, which could affect the study’s results and potentially the policy responses.

A key difference in survey questions is whether respondents are asked about their aspirations without any constraint or not. Indeed, some studies inquire about a desired outcome in a hypothetical scenario with no constraints, with questions such as “ _Imagine you had no constraints and could study for as long as you liked. What level of formal education would you like to complete?_ ” (Favara 2017; Roy, Morton, and Bhattacharya 2018; Ross 2019; Johnson et al. 2020) and “ _What is the highest level of education you would like to complete if finances and opportunity of the school/college are available?_ ” (Dhar, Jain, and Jayachandran 2020). Some others do not evoke a hypothetical barriers-free scenario and ask about the level of one dimension that one “would like,” “aspire,” or “intend” to reach (Beaman et al. 2012; Bernard et al. 2014; Mukherjee 2017; Bloem et al. 2018; García, Harker, and Cuartas 2019). And some explicitly ask about aspirations as options respondents feel able to achieve. Guyon and Huillery (2021) ask students about their educational aspirations as the options they prefer—in terms of level and track— among those they know and they feel capable of doing (by asking them beforehand to cite educational options without giving them a list); Carlana, La Ferrara, and Pinotti’s (2018) aspiration index for students builds on two questions, including: “ _independently from your educational aim but thinking about your abilities, do you think you could get a...(“university degree”/“white collar job”/“managerial job”)?_ ” Measuring different concepts can affect results and interpretation for policy advice. Two studies on the impact of the national conditional cash transfer program in Colombia on parents’ “aspirations” for their children measure different underlying concepts and have divergent conclusions. García, Harker, and Cuartas (2019) [GHC] find “a positive impact on aspirations for higher education, for both children and parents” after a year of exposure in 2003. Meanwhile, Contreras Suarez and Cameron (2020) [CSC] conclude that there is no evidence of impacts on aspirations for children’s education after 10 years, in 2012, based on the same baseline sample of surveyed beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries in 2002. The policy conclusions are also different: GHC suggest that this type of program may be improved by incorporating mechanisms to shift the beliefs of parents and children towards education whereas CSC suggest that the benefits of cash transfers lie solely in the additional

> 5 For example, Janzen et al. (2017) opt for the wording “What level of yearly income do you personally think you _might be able_ to achieve in the future?” for their study in Nepal given that expressions related to “wish”, “hope”, and “would like to” evoke wishful thinking in Nepali and might lead to unrealistic answers. Bloem et al. (2018) include a question on aspired income in their survey framed as “What level of income do you _need to feel  financially secure_ ” —in addition to a question framed as “would like”— to their survey in a mostly Hinduist region of Myanmar over the concern that respondents may either (i) restrict themselves in their responses given that wishes of income beyond moderate needs are socially discouraged, or (ii) report an aspired income out of proportion.

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