The author argues that in order to rebuild and strengthen the columns of this temple that we call democracy, we need to take a holistic approach. Thus, any policy-oriented counterstrategy to current tendencies of political polarization should be built around the pillars of 1) social platform regulation, 2) promoting research, …
Equipercentile equating is an alternative version of observed score equating that can accommodate non-normal response distributions. It corrects for differences in mean and standard deviation but also higher distribution moments, such as skewness and kurtosis. This helps harmonize instruments, where, for example, respondents mostly choose high (or low) response options. …
On 20 March, we celebrate the International Day of Happiness. The non-profit organization Action for Happiness suggests in the context of its campaign how to celebrate the day: “Keep Calm. Stay Wise. Be Kind.” This is undoubtedly a piece of advice we can take to heart in these challenging times …
The outbreak of COVID-19 has created new challenges for face-to-face research activities, including conducting in-person cognitive interviews. The first lockdown in Germany in mid-March 2020 coincided with the preparation phase of a pretest that we planned to conduct face-to-face in our pretest lab in Mannheim. Since we were no longer …
As an alternative to linear stretching, we look into the observed score equating approach in this post and the next. The easiest form of observed score equating is linear equating: a powerful approach that corrects for biases in the mean and standard deviation while harmonizing different instruments. Als Alternative zu …
Man könnte meinen, mit dem Rückgang individueller Religiosität im Säkularisierungsprozess verschwinden auch die Effekte der Religiosität auf Einstellungen und Verhalten. Dieser Befund ist in der Forschung allerdings umstritten. Denn es gibt Hinweise darauf, dass die Effekte individueller Religiosität in Folge der Säkularisierung sogar zunehmen. One might think that with the …