Cross-cultural surveys are increasingly being set up in numerous disciplines and around the globe. They allow testing for the generality of hypotheses across cultures and systematic research into institutional and other contextual differences. While it is essential to have a sound knowledge of survey methodology in general when setting up these surveys, there are additional methodological aspects to take into account in order to collect and to analyze cross-culturally comparable data.

 

This course focuses on what it means to develop and evaluate questionnaires for use in comparative research and assess the comparability of the used measurements employing, for example, measurement invariance tests. It is organized around the following themes: measurement in comparative surveys, developing questionnaires for cross-cultural surveys, measuring background variables and their harmonization, best-practice in questionnaire translation, and using quantitative (e.g. multigroup confirmatory factor analyses) and qualitative approaches (e.g. web probing) to test for cross-cultural comparability of measures (i.e. invariance) and to find out the reasons behind non-invariance.

Awareness of cross-cultural requirements during source questionnaire development to ensure comparability;

familiarity with best-practice in carrying out questionnaire translation and assessment; knowledge about the invariance framework and the meaning of bias and equivalence.

Interest in the impact of linguistic, cultural and institutional contexts on cross-cultural survey research; knowledge of general questionnaire design principles is highly desirable.