Papers by Irmtraud Gallhofer
VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften eBooks, 1989
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), 2007
When designing questionnaires, many choices have to be made. Because the consequences of these ch... more When designing questionnaires, many choices have to be made. Because the consequences of these choices for the quality of the questions are largely unknown, it has often been said that designing a questionnaire is an art. To make it a more scientific activity we need to know more about the consequences of these choices. In order to further such an approach we have: 1. made an inventory of the choices to be made when designing survey questions and created a code book to transform these question characteristics into the independent variables for explaining quality of survey questions; 2. assembled a large set of studies that use Multi-trait Multi-method experiments to estimate the reliability and validity of questions 3. carried out a meta-analysis that relates these question characteristics to the reliability and validity estimates of the questions. On the basis of the results of these efforts we have constructed a database. This data base contains at present 1023 measurement instruments based on 87 experiments conducted on random samples from sometimes regional but mostly national samples of 300 to 2000 respondents. The database contains information on studies of reliability and validity of survey questions formulated in three different languages: English, German and Dutch. The purpose of this study was to generate cross national generalizations of the findings published so far drawn from national studies. This analysis provides a quantitative estimate of the effects of the different choices on the reliability, validity and the method effects.
John Wiley & Sons, Inc. eBooks, Jan 22, 2007
In this chapter, we will first discuss the difference between concepts-by-intuition and the conce... more In this chapter, we will first discuss the difference between concepts-by-intuition and the concepts-by-postulation. After that we will illustrate the different ways in which concepts-by-postulation can be defined by concepts-by-intuition. In doing so, we will make a distinction between concepts-by-postulation, namely between concepts with reflective and formative indicators. These illustrations make it clear that there are many different ways to define concepts-by-postulation. The effects that the wording of survey questions can have on their responses have been studied in depth by
Design, Evaluation, and Analysis of Questionnaires for Survey Research, 2014
International Statistical Review, 2008
In this chapter, we will first discuss the difference between concepts-by-intuition and the conce... more In this chapter, we will first discuss the difference between concepts-by-intuition and the concepts-by-postulation. After that we will illustrate the different ways in which concepts-by-postulation can be defined by concepts-by-intuition. In doing so, we will make a distinction between concepts-by-postulation, namely between concepts with reflective and formative indicators. These illustrations make it clear that there are many different ways to define concepts-by-postulation. The effects that the wording of survey questions can have on their responses have been studied in depth by
John Wiley & Sons, Inc. eBooks, Jan 22, 2007
The Journal of Politics, 1998
Introduction A Qualitative Study of Collective Decision-Making Processes Theoretical Frameworks f... more Introduction A Qualitative Study of Collective Decision-Making Processes Theoretical Frameworks for Group Decision-Making in the Context of National Government Theoretical Framework Used in This Book Methodology Germany's Decision to Initiate World War II The World at the Brink of a Nuclear War: The U.S.' Decision to Avoid a Nuclear War, October 1962 The Austro-Hungarian Cabinet Decision to Initiate World War I The Dutch Cabinet Decision to Take Military Action in Indonesia, Autumn 1948: Consensual Decision-Making in a Heterogeneous Group The Dutch Cabinet Decision to Carry Out Military Action in Indonesia, December 1948: A Cabinet on the Brink of Tendering Its Resignation The Practice of Collective Choice A Quantitative Study of Collective Decision-Making by a Heterogeneous Group The Study of Decision-Making Processes The Decision-Making Process Results Preference Aggregation Rules References Subject Index Name Index Index
Advances in Comparative Survey Methods
Τα δεδομένα της συγκεκριμένης έρευνας αξιοποιούνται για εκπαιδευτικούς σκοπούς. Πλήρης περιγραφή ... more Τα δεδομένα της συγκεκριμένης έρευνας αξιοποιούνται για εκπαιδευτικούς σκοπούς. Πλήρης περιγραφή της έρευνας προσφέρεται κατόπιν εγγραφής στο: https://www.howtosurvey.gr Η μελέτη περίπτωσης που παρουσιάζεται εδώ αφορά στο πώς η σύγκρουση εργασιακής - οικογενειακής ζωής και η ευημερία διαφέρουν ανάλογα με το φύλο σε επτά συγκεκριμένες χώρες της Βόρειας Ευρώπης: τη Μεγάλη Βρετανία, την Ολλανδία, τη Γαλλία, τη Γερμανία, τη Νορβηγία, τη Σουηδία και την Δανία. Τα πρωτογενή δεδομένα που χρησιμοποιήθηκαν προήλθαν από το 2ο γύρο διεξαγωγής της Ευρωπαϊκής Κοινωνικής Έρευνας (ΕΚΕ) το 2004. H ΕΚΕ είναι μια διεθνής ποσοτική έρευνα που διεξάγεται τηρώντας όλες τις προβλεπόμενες μεθοδολογικές διαδικασίες ώστε να διασφαλιστεί η εγκυρότητα, η αξιοπιστία και η συγκρισιμότητα των εμπειρικών δεδομένων και επαναλαμβάνεται κάθε 2 χρόνια από το 2001 σε περισσότερες από 30 χώρες στην Ευρώπη και όχι μόνο και χρηματοδοτείται από την Ευρωπαϊκή Επιτροπή, το Ευρωπαϊκό Επιστημονικό Ίδρυμα και πόρους των χωρών π...
When designing questionnaires, many choices have to be made. Because the consequences of these ch... more When designing questionnaires, many choices have to be made. Because the consequences of these choices for the quality of the questions are largely unknown, it has often been said that designing a questionnaire is an art. To make it a more scientific activity we need to know more about the consequences of these choices. In order to further such an approach we have: 1. made an inventory of the choices to be made when designing survey questions and created a code book to transform these question characteristics into the independent variables for explaining quality of survey questions; 2. assembled a large set of studies that use Multi-trait Multi-method experiments to esti-mate the reliability and validity of questions 3. carried out a meta-analysis that relates these question characteristics to the reliability and validity estimates of the questions. On the basis of the results of these efforts we have constructed a database. This data base con-tains at present 1023 measurement instr...
Informal Logic, 2021
Philosophers deny a proposal for actions can be deduced from arguments for or against the proposa... more Philosophers deny a proposal for actions can be deduced from arguments for or against the proposal because they may be incompatible. Nevertheless, people in general, and politicians especially, make decisions and present arguments they believe are convincing. We studied politicians who made decisions in complex situations. They spoke about possible actions, their consequences, the probabilities of these consequences and their evaluations, but rarely indicated why their arguments led to their choice. We hypothesized implicit argumentation rules involved and checked whether they predicted those choices. We found seven implicit informal logic rules involved. We also found a random sample of people made the same choices based on the same arguments, suggesting basic warrants by which people argue about decisions.
European Journal of Political Research, 1994
This article describes the process of the aggregation of individual ministerial preferences into ... more This article describes the process of the aggregation of individual ministerial preferences into group decisions in a national cabinet, on the basis of a sample of crucial Dutch foreign policy decisions as described in the minutes of the council of ministers. The results of the study show that decisions in the cabinet were mainly made according to the norms of this group, which were consensus and the non-interference of ministers in issues not concerning their department. Consensus turned out to be of secondary importance as compared with noninterference; key ministers could push through decisions by majority rule if they had consensus among themselves. Since specialists mostly made the decisions, the task of non-specialist ministers was mainly to function as approvers or disapprovers, though they did make some minor contributions in cases of disagreement among the specialists. When there was agreement among the specialists they followed a process resembling the analytic model, i.e. one based on consideration of the consequences. However, when there was disagreement between specialists. they engaged in a cybernetic decision process, reviewing sequentially a large number of options, neglecting the consequences and striving for a consensus option such as incremental action, which would frequently be the result of a compromise.
Acta Psychologica, 1988
In a previous research 235 political decisions were studied based on documentary material. One of... more In a previous research 235 political decisions were studied based on documentary material. One of the results of this study was that, given a decision maker's description of the problem, (i.e., the alternatives, probabilities and values of the outcomes), his choice could be predicted, even though he did not state the decision rule he used. Due to this incompleteness there is a question about whether the decision makers and their audiences really applied the decision rules which have been predicted. Therefore, this study investigated whether subjects in general understood the policians' problem structure and recognized the expected decision rule when presented with the information as the politicians provided. The results of the study showed that logically compelling choices were recognixed by the subjects and that in clear situations the majority of the subjects specified the same rule as the one that was predicted. But if information was available which was not strictly necessary to derive the correct choice, they often ignored this information and specified a simpler rule.
Quality & Quantity, 2004
Much has been written about the effects of the wording of survey questions on responses, whereas,... more Much has been written about the effects of the wording of survey questions on responses, whereas, relatively little attention has been given to the content of the questions or the translation of theoretical concepts into related questions in survey research. In this paper we concentrate on the link between a set of basic concepts for social science research and questions that can be formulated to measure these concepts. These basic concepts are: evaluations, cognitive judgments, relations, evaluative beliefs, feelings, preferences, rights, norms , policies, action tendencies, expectations, behavior, events, knowledge, demographic characteristics and information about place, time and procedures. In order to clarify the link between the concepts and their verbal expressions (assertions) we analyze structures of sentences presenting the different concepts. Eight principally different assertion structures have been found which describe most of the survey concepts. These findings can be used in two ways: one can use them to specify an assertion for a certain type of concept or alternatively one can also use the system to classify existing questions.
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Papers by Irmtraud Gallhofer