Mokken Scale Analysis (MSA) is a nonparametric approach that offers exploratory tools for understanding the nature of item responses while emphasizing invariance requirements. MSA is often discussed as it relates to Rasch measurement theory, which also emphasizes invariance, but uses parametric models. Researchers who have compared and combined…

Directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) are now a popular tool to inform causal inferences. We discuss how DAGs can also be used to encode theoretical assumptions about nonprobability samples and survey nonresponse and to determine whether population quantities including conditional distributions and regressions can be identified. We describe sources of…

Grouped and right-censored (GRC) counts have been used in a wide range of attitudinal and behavioural surveys yet they cannot be readily analyzed or assessed by conventional statistical models. This study develops a unified regression framework for the design and optimality of GRC counts in surveys. To process infinitely many grouping schemes for…

Adaptive survey design refers to using targeted procedures to recruit different sampled cases. This technique strives to reduce bias and variance of survey estimates by trying to recruit a larger and more balanced set of respondents. However, it is not well understood how adaptive design can improve data and survey estimates beyond the…

Individual religiosity measures are used by researchers to describe and compare individuals and societies. However, the cross-cultural comparability of the measures has often been questioned but rarely empirically tested. In the current study, we examined the cross-national measurement invariance properties of generalized individual religiosity in…

Prior research highlights the benefits of multimode surveys and best practices for item-by-item (IBI) and matrix-type survey items. Some researchers have explored whether mode differences for online and paper surveys persist for these survey item types. However, no studies discuss measurement invariance when both item types and online modes are…

Measurement invariance allows for the comparison and interpretation of scores obtained from the same scales at different times. In this respect, the purpose of this research is to examine the measurement invariance of the satisfaction with life scale applied to different age groups. The study employs the survey model, a type of quantitative…

When and how to survey potential respondents is often determined by budgetary and external constraints, but choice of survey modality may have enormous implications for data quality. Different survey modalities may be differentially susceptible to measurement error attributable to interviewer assignment, known as interviewer effects. In this…

When using multiple imputation, users often want to know how many imputations they need. An old answer is that 2-10 imputations usually suffice, but this recommendation only addresses the efficiency of point estimates. You may need more imputations if, in addition to efficient point estimates, you also want standard error (SE) estimates that would…

The Stranger Face Trust scale (SFT) and Imaginary Stranger Trust scale (IST) are two new self-report measures of generalized trust that assess trust in strangers--both real and imaginary--across four trust domains. Prior research has established the reliability and validity of SFT and IST, but a number of measurement validation tests remain.…

Researchers interested in studying the frequency of events or behaviors among a population must rely on count data provided by sampled individuals. Often, this involves a decision between live event counting, such as a behavioral diary, and recalled aggregate counts. Diaries are generally more accurate, but their greater cost and respondent burden…

The network scale-up method (NSUM) is a survey-based method for estimating the number of individuals in a hidden or hard-to-reach subgroup of a general population. In NSUM surveys, sampled individuals report how many others they know in the subpopulation of interest (e.g. "How many sex workers do you know?") and how many others they know…

One question frequently included in surveys asks about respondents' earnings. As this information serves, for example, as a basis for evaluating policy interventions, it must be of high quality. This study aims to advance knowledge about possible measurement errors in earnings data and the potential of data linkage to improve substantive…

Although research on sensitive topics has produced a large body of knowledge on how to improve the quality of self-reported data, little is known regarding the sensitivity of offending questions, and much less is known regarding how topic sensitivity is affected by recall periods. In this study, we developed a multi-dimensional assessment of item…

The piecewise latent growth models (PWLGMs) can be used to study changes in the growth trajectory of an outcome due to an event or condition, such as exposure to an intervention. When there are multiple outcomes of interest, a researcher may choose to fit a series of PWLGMs or a single parallel-process PWLGM. A comparison of these models is…