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You can contact the Centre with enquiries about any aspect of comparative
survey research. If we do not have appropriate in-house expertise, we will
do our best to guide you to experts elsewhere. Our own staff have special
expertise in the following areas:
Benchmarking
– GESIS-ZUMA assists comparative projects in assessment and benchmarking of
project targets, protocols, and procedures.
Questionnaire
Design – Design and development of questionnaires for cross-cultural
surveys is the corner stone for equivalence across cultures. GESIS-ZUMA consults
on all issues of questionnaire design and testing.
Adaptation
and Translation – "Source" questionnaires are often translated
in order to interview multiple populations. GESIS-ZUMA consults on how to
implement project-tailored translation and adaptation protocols, on
translator selection and briefing, and on translation assessment and
testing.
Data
Collection – In multi-population studies, process quality monitoring faces
challenges related, for example, to sample management systems, national and
fielding agency conventions, time lags in feedback, and language barriers.
GESIS-ZUMA can advise on how to specify and monitor survey process quality across
multiple implementations.
Sampling
– Sample designs and realisations are essential first steps in securing data to
which is to be compared across populations. GESIS-ZUMA can advise on sampling design,
implementation and assessment of outcomes and
weighting.
Socio-demographic
variables
–
Socio-demographic variables measure the objective social situation of survey
respondents in terms of characteristics such as Age, Sex, Education, Income,
Housing, Occupation and Marital Status. They denote the cultural and
socio-economic structures into which respondents’ behaviour, attitudes,
norms and value orientations are embedded. GESIS-ZUMA consults on standardisation
and harmonisation of socio-demographic variables both in national and
international contexts.
Analysis
– Analysis of cross-cultural survey data may call for complex substantive
analyses and always needs to be accompanied by validation procedures to
identify possible bias. In co-operation with international experts, GESIS-ZUMA
consults on all aspects of comparative data analysis.
Metadata
and Knowledge Management – Documentation of multi-population surveys is best
seen as knowledge management. In co-operation with the Central Archive in
Cologne, GESIS-ZUMA consults on all aspects of cross-cultural, cross-national survey
documentation.
Personality
scales – Previous research has shown that the individual’s personality structure
is useful in explaining numerous socially relevant variables,
such as values, interests,
attitudes, and also more concrete issues, such as political orientation.
GESIS-ZUMA
provides a standard battery for assessment of the Big Five personality
dimensions, consisting of ten items, two for each personality dimension.
This battery was designed for implementation in social
surveys in general and for cross-cultural surveys. Translations of the questionnaire are available for French,
Spanish, Italian, Hebrew, and Japanese.
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