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Basic issues in measuring gender attitudes

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Title: Basic issues in measuring gender attitudes


1
Basic issues in measuring gender attitudes
  • Ko Oudhof
  • Statistics Netherlands

2
What will I tell you?
  • Just for a start your own contribution
  • Subjective indicators
  • What are attitudes
  • Measurement issues
  • Analytic issues
  • Here and there gender/ international
    comparability

3
Before I tell you anything
  • Think of one short statement on the role of women
    or men in decision making that according to
    yourself would make it possible to distinguish
    respondents into advocates and opponents of
    gender equality by looking at their
    (dis)agreement with your statement

4
Introductory vocabulary
  • Indicator
  • Cognitive
  • Evaluative
  • Affective
  • Item
  • Scale
  • One digit, evaluating, goal-related
  • About seeing, knowing and thinking
  • About good or bad
  • About like or dislike
  • Statement or question
  • List of items

5
Policy and role of indicators
  • Selection policy goals
  • Assessing policy process
  • Evaluate policy results

6
Subjective indicators and policy-1
  • Selection policy goals
  • what do people (not) want? (Worries,
    aspirations, satisfactions)
  • what do people need or get rid off? (immaterial
    needs, happiness)
  • Assessing policy process
  • Public support (trust, support)
  • Assess course of policy (predictions, prognosis)
  • Evaluate policy results
  • Goal attainment (health, inequality, perceived
    safety, xenophobia)

7
Subjective indicators and policy-2
  • No objective observation?
  • Subjective condition real policy objective
  • Direct measurement
  • Both subjective and objective indicators depart
    from implicit assumptions on each other in some
    implicit psychological model on behavior!
  • Vague? Limits to aggregation!
  • Measuring all possible wrongs?
  • Indicators with a large mandate needed
  • Statistical weaknesses
  • No money and no counting
  • Monetary value or size of subjective condition?
  • Specific measure and methodology
  • Experts needed

8
Subjective indicators
  • Policy-relevance (issues)
  • Need- or Behavior-related (predictability)
  • Variability (daily fluctuations versus almost
    invariable states)
  • Now indicators
  • In these times indicators
  • Long term perspective - indicators

9
Subjective conditions and the world
Now -response Structured stable behavior? Now -
feedback
  • Needs and wants
  • Emotions
  • Perception
  • Experience
  • Learning
  • Motives
  • Goals
  • Etc.
  • Fysical environment
  • Social environment

10
Attitudes (common elements in most definitions)
  • Oriented on object, person, institution or event
  • Evaluative component
  • Cognitive component
  • Affective component
  • Stable condition or construct
  • Intermediary between object stimulus and
    behavioural response consistency

11
Relatives with likeness
  • Opinions (now)
  • stability less
  • more cognitive and not always evaluative
  • behavioral relation weaker
  • Values (long term)
  • general and less object-oriented
  • stability higher
  • behavioral relation more indirect
  • Norms (derivative)
  • prescription of behavior
  • stability higher
  • behavioral relation stronger and more direct
  • less cognitive and less affective

12
Relation subjective elements
Abstraction
value
attitude
opinion
Time
13
Model Theory Planned Behaviour (Ajzen)
14
General Model (Van der Pligt De Vries)
15
Relation attitude behavior ( reasoned action
approach in 2004)
Ajzen Fishbein, 2004
16
Attitudes and gender policy
  • Hardly any NSI
  • Why gender attitudes?
  • Attitude change as objective?
  • Defensive in discussion?
  • Same question elsewhere?
  • Macro-economy confidence consumers/producers
  • Business world marketing
  • Politics voting behavior
  • Health perceived health
  • Crime feeling of insecurity

17
Gender attitude research and tools in practice
  • Mainly academic or ad hoc research
  • Few international research projects
  • Gender role (labor market or household) main
    topic
  • Hardly any standardisation
  • Example attitudes on female decision making
  • Support preferential policies
  • Attitudes among decision makers
  • Acceptance of female management
  • Effects of leadership styles

18
Engendering attitudes
  • Objects
  • Explaining behavior
  • Measurement tools
  • Analysis
  • Interpretation
  • Presentation
  • Gender Issues
  • Engendered concepts
  • Gender validity
  • By sex or more?
  • By sex or more?
  • By sex or more?

More differences compared to other
non-gendered research as consequence of earlier
steps
19
Measurement of attitudes
  • Explicit measurement
  • (under conscious control respondent)
  • one item
  • multi-item
  • Implicit measurement
  • (without conscious control respondent)
  • observation of behavior (non-obtrusive)
  • bodily response
  • response latency
  • ? Academic research and less relevant for
    statistical offices etc.

20
Quality of measurement - reliability
  • equal outcomes of tool when measuring the same?
  • random error
  • inter-items reliability
  • test-retest / split-half
  • interobserver reliability
  • quality measure versus external factors

21
Quality of measurement - validity
  • Similar results from other tools when measuring
    the same
  • Systematic error
  • Construct validity
  • convergent validity what should
  • divergent validity - not what should not
  • Predictive validity
  • Multitrait-multimethod matrix as solid
    validity-testing design

22
Survey?
  • Insight in own attitude/opinion
  • Can they express the attitudes/opnions
  • personal conditions (e.g. ability)
  • situational conditions (e.g. individual
    interview?)
  • Plausibility true answering
  • personal conditions (e.g. strategic response)
  • situational conditions (e.g. interviewer
    interaction)
  • Alternative informants/ assessing documents
  • General considerations on survey design

23
Single item or multi-item measurement?
  • Quick ? Cheap
  • all or nothing, also in time-series
  • one-dimensional
  • sometimes quite high and reliable
  • how do you assess psychometric properties
  • Response time ? Expensive
  • Shortening scale generally possible
  • Multidimensional
  • Scale properties can be assessed
  • International comparability and standardisation
    of scales (or subscales)

24
Multi-item variants
  • Osgood scale
  • Thurstone scale
  • Likert scale
  • Guttman scaling
  • multi-object measuring
  • monetary methods (WTP)
  • General dimensions
  • Pretested dichotomous scaled items
  • Addition of multi-point (3-100) items
  • Scaled statements
  • Conjunct / dominance/ similarity
  • Simulated markets/ hedonic price analysis/
    contingent valuation (CV) or ranking (CR)

25
Likert scale
  • Rather simple
  • List of items expressing positive and negative
    opinions on attitude object
  • Selection of relevant items by content
  • Choice of answering categories
  • Number
  • meaning of scores
  • middle category
  • dont know yes or no
  • Scale rating by summing item values (after
    recoding)
  • Self-made or standard?

26
Selection of items
  • Relevant for all groups (e.g. young old)
  • Clear and unequivocal interpretation
  • No multiple question items
  • No double negations
  • No questions but statements (response set)
  • No confirmation bias ? pos neg
  • Time spans now/these days/whole life
  • Suggestive expression (most people)
  • Biased or suggestive answering categories
  • Personalised or public statements (Hakim)

27
More possible interferences
  • Character of survey (crime or labour?)
  • Interviewer
  • Order of topics in questionnaire
  • Introduction of scale
  • Interference of different topics in one scale
  • Order of items
  • No repeats or redundancy
  • Social desirability ? overreporting or
    underreporting

28
So youve got your data
  • Assessing or reassessing quality of scale?
  • Reliability aspects
  • Validity aspects
  • Deciding what to do considering
  • Objectives (employer/ supervisor)
  • Tools (standards?)
  • Methodological explanations
  • Explanation of results

29
Item and scale analysis
  • Assessing reliability of scale as given
  • Depending on design
  • Without any validity analysis of scale
  • (re)assessing items scale(s)
  • linearity and other assumptions?
  • multidimensional?
  • dropping items possible?
  • selection of techniques to assess scale
  • Consistency/ homogeneity items
  • Analysis content via Princ.Comp./ factoran./
    scaling

30
Scale ratings
  • Which ratings should be used?
  • sum
  • weighted sum (only part of items needed?)
  • factor scores
  • To be used for what?
  • is level relevant? (breakdowns or time series)
  • is level confusing? (comparability)
  • nature of audience (general public or scientists)

31
Gender international
  • Which issue or topic?
  • Which concept?
  • Which measurement tool?
  • Main problem for both validity
  • reduction or prevention of systematic error
  • Analysis extra validity analysis
  • Interpretation plus restraint by validity
  • Presentation including reserves by limited
    validity?

32
More to learn
  • In hand-out suggestions for further reading
  • Standard handbooks for students social psychology
  • Look on the internet by using searching machines
    attitude, gender, survey (e.g. Ajzen)
  • Search for sites on international surveys (e.g.
    European Social Survey) and research databases

33
Evaluating both scales
  • Gender dimension
  • Inter-item consistency? Homogeneity?
  • Valid multidimensionality?
  • Quality of separate items?
  • Scale quality
  • Etc.
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