Book: ‘Measuring meaningful data in social research’

Measuring data in a valid and reliable manner is the most important task for social scientists. Measuring meaningful data, however, seems to be even more important.  Content and method can be considered two sides of one medal.  In 20 chapters, over 40 international scientists provide insights in this highly relevant debate.

Published by Acco (Leuven) ISBN 978 90 334 6829 2. Presale price €30 

Editors: Geert Loosveldt, Marc Swyngedouw, Bart Cambré,
Authors: Roeland Beerten | Maya Caen | Bart Cambré | Aina Capo | Ann Carton | Germà Coenders | Luis Coromina | Eldad Davidov | Hans De Witte |  Karel Dobbelaere | Rob Eisinga | Anuska Ferligoj | Rory Fitzgerald | Bart Goeminne | Jacques Hagenaars | Loek Halman | Eric Harrison | Dirk Heerwegh | Jürgen Hoffmeyer-Zlotnik | Roger Jowell | Dagmar Krebs | John Lievens | Geert Loosveldt | Marcel Lubbers | Ruud Luijkx | Bart Maddens | Hideko Matsuo | Bart Meuleman | Daniel Oberski | Marius Ooms |  Johan Oud | Jan Pickery | Willem Saris | Peer Scheepers | Peter Schmidt | Ineke Stoop |  Peter Swanborn |  Marc Swyngedouw | Toni Toharudin | Fons van de Vijver | Vasja Vehovar | Hans Waege | Jerry Welkenhuysen-Gybels

 

If you want to purchase the book at presale price, click here

Contents

  • Introduction (Geert Loosveldt, Marc Swygedouw and Bart Cambré)
  • Belgium: from ‘Laïcisation’ to Individual Secularization Resulting in a New Wave of ‘Laïcisation’ (Karel Dobbelaere)
  • Religion and Morality in Contemporary Europe (Loek Halman and Ruud Luijkx)
  • Convergence and Persistence of Left-Right Orientations in the Netherlands 1978-1995 (Rob Eisinga and Marius Ooms)
  • Euro-scepticism and Extreme Voting Patterns in Europe (Marcel Lubbers and Peer Scheepers)
  • Job Insecurity and Voting for an Extreme Right-wing Party: Elaboration and Test of a Conceptual model (Hans De Witte and Bart Meuleman)
  • On the Relationship between Media Use, Social Capital, Social-Political Attitudes and Voting behaviour (Marc Swyngedouw and Bart Goeminne)
  • Assessing the Relationships between Nationalism, Ethnocentrism and Individualism in Flanders using Bergstrom’s approximate discrete model (Johan Oud and Toni Toharudin)
  • Split-ticket voting in the Belgian General Election of 18 May 2003 (Bart Maddens)
  • Possibilities of Evaluating Interviewer Effects Through the Use of Interviewer Variance (Geert Loosveldt, Dirk Heerwegh and Hideko Matsuo)
  • Scale items on trust in institutions: to randomize or not to randomize? (Ann Carton, Jan Pickery and Roeland Beerten)
  • The Tricky Business of Measuring Cultural behaviour. Can a New Measurement Instrument for the Cultural Participation Counter Overreporting? (John Lievens, Maya Caen and Hans Waege)
  • Design and Evaluation of a Web Survey for the Social Network Data (Germà Coenders, Anuska Ferligoj, Luis Coromina and Aina Capo)
  • Attitude toward Foreigners: Balanced Items and the Effect of Unipolar versus Bipolar Scaling (Dagmar Krebs and Jürgen Hoffmeyer-Zlotnik)
  • Why are there Differences in Measurement Quality across Countries? (Daniel Oberski, Willem Saris and Jacques Hagenaars)
  • No Time, too Bussy. Time Strain and Survey Cooperation (Ineke Stoop)
  • Non-respondents in the ESS: in a Class of their own? (Eric Harrison, Roger Jowell and Rory Fitzgerald)
  • Nonresponse bias in European Social Survey (Vasja Vehovar)
  • Acomparison of Methods for the Evaluation of Construct Equivalence in a Multigroup Setting (Jerry Welkenhuysen-Gybels, Fons van de Vijver and Bart Cambré)
  • Are values in the Benelux Countries Comparble? Testing for Equivalence with the European Social Survey (Eldad Davidov and Peter Schmidt)
  • Evaluating the Quality of Academic Study Programs (Peter Swanborn)