World Values Survey: New Research Horizons and Methodological Challenges 2 |
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| Session Organisers |
Dr Kseniya Kizilova (Head of the Secretariat, World Values Survey Association) Professor Christian Haerpfer (President, World Values Survey Association) |
| Time | Friday 19th July, 13:30 - 14:30 |
| Room | D19 |
The World Values Survey (WVS) is one of the world's largest and longest time-series global social research programs. WVS studies changing values and their impact on social and political life. In 1981-2018, the WVS has carried out representative national surveys in over 110 countries containing 92% of the world’s population. Work on analysing this data has been invaluable for a global network of scholars and international development agencies, including the World Bank, the UNDP, the WHO, regional development banks etc.
WVS wave 7 constitutes the next round of the program. Around 100 000 respondents in over 70 world countries will be interviewed in the course of 2017-2019 on a great scope of issues, including social values, attitudes & stereotypes; societal well-being; social capital, trust and organizational membership; economic values; corruption; migration; post-materialist index; science & technology; religious values; security; ethical values & norms; political interest and political participation; political culture and political regimes. New survey findings on these and other topics will be presented within this panel.
The ambition of the WVS-7 survey round includes testing a number of new survey items belonging both to the WVS research agenda (new forms of political participation, attitudes towards migration, corruption, security etc.) as well as designed to measure the Sustainable Development Goals indicators such as inclusive and responsive decision-making. Results of this pilot in different national and cultural contexts and conclusions on the reliability and validity of the new items will be presented in the panel.
In wave 7 WVS continues extending its geographical coverage and includes countries lacking reliable statistical and census information (i.e. Lebanon or the UAE). National teams in these countries elaborated their own methodological approaches to build national representative samples. WVS scholars will share their sample design techniques within the frame of this panel.
WVS-7 survey round is also innovative in application of mix-mode survey methods, combining online panels, face-to-face interviews and telephone surveys. Panel will feature presentations comparing findings collected in parallel via different survey methods in the same countries allowing to estimate the reliability of mixed-mode surveys as well as the challenges and prospects of methods combination.
We invite submissions dealing both with the analysis of WVS 1-7 waves data and methodological aspects of the WVS surveys implementation. We welcome submissions from both members of the WVS network and independent scholars.
Keywords: World Values Survey, comparative, cross-sectional, cross-cultural, mix-mode methods, survey technique, survey methodology
Dr Benjamin Phillips (The Social Research Centre) - Presenting Author
Dr Jill Sheppard (The Australian National University)
Ms Anna Lethborg (The Social Research Centre)
In this paper, we contrast the results of a parallel administration of a subset of World Values Survey (WVS) items on Life in Australia™, a probability-based online panel, and the actual Australian WVS Wave 7. Life in Australia™ recruits its members using dual-frame RDD and includes offline respondents via CATI administration. The Australian WVS draws its sample from an address-based sample with the survey administered via mail with a push-to-web recruitment strategy.
Although the administration mode of ongoing and comparative survey research has traditionally been constant, the evolving survey environment threatens this constancy. The WVS has traditionally been administered by face-to-face interview based on cluster sampling of address-based, area-probability or other geographic frames. However, persistent coverage errors, high costs and the introduction of new member nations in which face-to-face interviewing is not feasible have led to increasingly mixed modes of administration.
Out of 63 measures from WVS Wave 7 fielded across both samples and modes, we find significant differences in responses to only seven questions after Hochberg’s (1988) adjustment for multiple testing. Of those differences, the biggest is the importance of religion, with Life in Australia™ panellists more likely to say religion was an important part of their lives. The second largest is the importance of politics in respondents’ lives, with online panellists placing a higher importance on politics. The other differences—though statistically significant—are negligible. Our findings contribute to the emerging literature arguing that mode effects are small enough that they do not preclude mixed mode survey research and that probability-based panels, available in increasing numbers of countries, may be suitable for cross-national research.
Professor Ming-Chang Tsai (Academia Sinica) - Presenting Author
It has been argued that an increasing trend of postmaterialism reflects cultural changes pertaining to intergenerational replacement. Both effects of social change and individual life course tend to be confounding with generational effects representing distinctive worldviews of certain cohorts. To effectively disentangle these influences of age, period and cohort is important for understanding how postmaterialism evolves in specific manners across societies. This study reanalyzes the data from four waves of World Values Survey (1995, 2000, 2005 and 2010) on the basis of a comprehensive 12-item scale of postmaterialism. By using the cross-classified random effect model, a newly developed technique to differentiate the A-P-C effects, the study provides a number of substantial findings. In the US, there is a trend of increasing postmaterialism overtime. However, those aged between 20-24 also show a belief in importance of economic security. The cohort of 1930, rather than the baby boomer generation, show stronger attitudinal support to postmaterialism. In three East Asian populations, a trend overtime is not observable. In South Korea, the generations of the 1960s and 1970s are less likely to embrace postmaterialism, yet neither Japan nor China have a similar pattern. Age difference is unsystematic in the three societies. And the youngest group in both South Korea and China even shows a lower level of postmaterialism. In comparison, education seems to be a key factor in breeding postmaterialism, although this association is not found in Japan. These findings altogether do not support a general theory of postmaterialism even for countries with similar income level like the US and Japan. Rather, the patterns and dynamics in mass belief for materialism or postmaterialism clearly differ between the West and East.
Professor Yang Zhong (Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the University of Tennessee) - Presenting Author
As democracy is in retreat worldwide, what is the level of popular support for democracy and democratic values in China now? The paper draws findings from the newly conducted World Values Survey Wave 7 in China. The paper will focus on who are likely the supporters of democracy and democratic values and what factors affecting people’s support for democracy and democratic values in China. The study will also compare levels of Chinese popular support for democracy and democratic values from past WVS in China.