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What Do Responses to Life Satisfaction Scale Questions Mean? Evidence from Cognitive Interviewing| title | What Do Responses to Life Satisfaction Scale Questions Mean? Evidence from Cognitive Interviewing |
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| start_date | 2023/03/09 |
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| schedule | 11h-12h |
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| online | no |
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| location_info | R2-21 |
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| summary | Statistical analysis of life satisfaction data relies on three fundamental assumptions about the properties of such data: (1) Individuals perceive the scale as being linear (“cardinality”). (2) All individuals use the scale in the same way (“interpersonal comparability”). (3) The way that individuals use the scale does not change over time (“intertemporal comparability”). Sceptics of life satisfaction scales question the credibility of these assumptions. Advocates respond with evidence of psychometrics validity. For example, that life satisfaction declined markedly during the outbreak of the COVID 19 pandemic. Yet while this attests to the useability of life satisfaction scale data, it does not clarify the precision of the associated metrics and thus the extent of that useability. Some applications, such as cost-effectiveness analysis using life satisfaction data, may be compromised by especially severe violations of the three assumptions above. We need to better understand these issues of degrees if we are to responsibly apply life satisfaction scale data in policy. Assessing the credibility of these assumptions requires understanding the life satisfaction ‘reporting function’. This is an affective, cognitive, and linguistic process that subjectively assesses life satisfaction and then maps that assessment to a response category on a life satisfaction scale question. This study explores the reporting function using cognitive interviews: essentially asking respondents to ‘think out loud’ while answering life satisfaction scale and follow up questions. The resulting qualitative data is analysed to explicate the reporting function and evaluate the three assumptions above. |
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| responsibles | Chassagnon, Apouey |
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Workflow history| from state (1) | to state | comment | date |
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| submitted | published | | 2023/02/27 15:38 UTC |
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