The International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) - data quality issues in cross-national perspective 1 |
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| Coordinator 1 | Professor Stephanie Steinmetz (FORS and University of Lausanne) |
| Coordinator 2 | Dr René Bautista (NORC at the University of Chicago) |
| Coordinator 3 | Dr Evi Scholz (GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences) |
| Coordinator 4 | Professor Markus Hadler (University of Graz) |
In an increasingly interdependent world, to learn about the attitudes and behaviour of the population around the globe is essential. While many cross-national surveys are exclusively one-shot or one-topic initiatives, continuous global social surveys with high-quality standards are rare. The International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) is one of the exceptionally large and continuous programmes designed to offer both cross-national data and long time series. Since 1985, the ISSP conducts annual surveys on various topics important for social science research. Methodological issues are discussed in an extra committee of ISSP experts where national sample designs are checked for compliance with ISSP requirements and signed off for individual ISSP members. The ISSP is also exceptional as an organisation based on democratic cooperation of equal partners, which offers a special atmosphere for all kind of discussion about various subjects and flexibility in terms of adapting to new challenges and unforeseen issues. In addition, ISSP data, questionnaires and documentation, e.g., on data collection or on questionnaire development, are free of charge for all researchers interested in cross-national data. The ISSP is thus a priceless resource for various research areas in need of global survey data with high methodological standards and high quality data.
This session aims to provide and foster the exchange about the ISSP among providers and interested researchers already using or planning to use the ISSP data in their research. In the session, we will focus in particular on methodological challenges related to the data quality of cross-national surveys, however also substantial papers using one or various ISSP modules are welcome to the session.