Abstract
Comparative surveys commonly must translate questions and response alternatives from one language into others. However, because many constructs of interest to researchers are culturally and legally embedded and dependent, direct translations of the words may not be sufficient to ensure measurement comparability for all constructs. This chapter describes an approach to “harmonizing” survey measures rather than translating them and use the “private household” concept as a case study for how this practice may produce more comparable measures across countries and cultures. Best practices for the process of harmonization are also discussed.
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Target harmonization is often used by the official statistics. A target measure is predefined. The national statistical offices collect the necessary information by the best national way to generate the inquired variables and to generate the common indicator.
References and Further Reading
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Hoffmeyer-Zlotnik, J. H. P., & Warner, U. (2008). Private Household Concepts and Their Operationalisation in National and International Social Surveys. Mannheim: GESIS-ZUMA. http://www.gesis.org/uploads/media/SM1_Gesamt.pdf [accessed March 25, 2016].
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Hoffmeyer-Zlotnik, J.H.P., Warner, U. (2018). Harmonization for Cross-National Comparative Social Survey Research: A Case Study Using the “Private Household” Variable. In: Vannette, D., Krosnick, J. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Survey Research . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54395-6_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54395-6_11
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