Enhancing the validity and cross-cultural comparability of measurement in survey research
Enhancing the validity and cross-cultural comparability of measurement in survey research
复制标题
DOI：
10.1017/s0003055403000881
复制
发表时间：
2003-11-01
影响因子：
6.8
通讯作者：
Tandon, A
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
King, G;Murray, CJL;Tandon, A
我们解决两个长期存在的调查研究问题：测量复杂的概念，如政治自由和效能，研究人员定义最好的参考例子;当受访者以不同的方式解释相同的问题时，该怎么办。长期以来，学者们一直在用减少不可比性的方法来解决这些问题，比如写更具体的问题，但成功率参差不齐。我们的替代方案是直接测量回答类别的不可比性并对其进行校正。我们通过回答者的评估来测量不可比性，与要校正的自我评估相同，在简短的插图中描述假设的个人。由于小插曲的实际（但不一定是报告的）水平是不变的受访者，小插曲的答案的变化揭示了不可比性。我们的校正需要简单的重新编码或统计模型，旨在节省调查管理成本。通过分析，模拟和跨国调查，我们展示了响应不可比性如何极大地误导调查研究人员，以及我们的方法如何缓解这个问题。
We address two long-standing survey research problems: measuring complicated concepts, such as political freedom and efficacy, that researchers define best with reference to examples; and what to do when respondents interpret identical questions in different ways. Scholars have long addressed these problems with approaches to reduce incomparability, such as writing more concrete questions-with uneven success. Our alternative is to measure directly response category incomparability and to correct for it. We measure incomparability via respondents' assessments, on the same scale as the self-assessments to be corrected, of hypothetical individuals described in short vignettes. Because the actual (but not necessarily reported) levels of the vignettes are invariant over respondents, variability in vignette answers reveals incomparability. Our corrections require either simple recodes or a statistical model designed to save survey administration costs. With analysis, simulations, and cross-national surveys, we show how response incomparability can drastically mislead survey researchers and how our approach can alleviate this problem.