Scale design, attitude measurement, and cultural differences |
|
| Coordinator 1 | Mr Lukas Schick (GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences) |
Many researchers use rating scales in their surveys to measure respondents' attitudes. Such rating scales demand much of respondents: Namely to translate a continuous, often uncertain attitude intensity into a standardized, ordinal response format. To support respondents in this, questionnaire designers must make careful choices: For example, the number of response options, the verbalization of the response options, or the scale polarity. Researchers conducting multilingual and multicultural surveys face the additional challenge of ensuring an adequate translation or adaption of their scale.
To improve data quality, the aim and the challenge for researchers is to design scales in such a way that respondents have no difficulties in understanding the scale and understand it equally, thus allowing respondents to answer the question as accurately as possible.
But what impact do different scale designs have on the response behavior and, subsequently, response data quality?
In this session, researchers will share their work on the influence of scale design on response behavior, as well as the implementation of new scales. This includes experiments on the verbalization of response options, the number of response options and the comparability of data in cross-national surveys. The session is of interest to questionnaire designers, especially in cross-national settings and to methodologists interested in the complexities of rating scale design.