Dealing with the complexity of cross-national data: The potential of web probing to assess and explain missing equivalence of comparative national identity measures.
Katharina Meitinger, GESIS
Dealing with the complexity of cross-national data: The potential of web probing to assess and explain missing equivalence of comparative national identity measures.
There has been a tremendous increase in cross-national data production in social science research in recent decades. Before drawing substantive conclusions based on cross-national survey data, researchers need to verify whether the measures are indeed comparable. Quantitative measurement invariance tests are an important control tool for researchers working with cross-national data. However, this approach does not provide explanations if data is found noninvariant and it cannot assess the comparability of single-item measures.
The recently developed qualitative method of web probing can supplement a quantitative assessment and reveal why measures are incomparable. This presentation will introduce the method of web probing and present three applications of web probing for the evaluation of cross-national data: as an assessment tool for single-item measures; in combination with traditional measurement invariance tests using multi-group confirmatory factor analysis; and its contribution to the current discussion on approximate measurement invariance. This presentation uses substantive examples from the field of national identity and will discuss the comparability of the measures of general national pride, patriotism and nationalism as well as patriotic feelings from the 2013 International Social Survey Program (ISSP) module on “National Identity.”