Sumários
Measuring Ideology: Current practices, its consequences, and recommendations
23 Maio 2023, 14:00 • Rita Sousa
Political ideologies are foundational to a broad range of social science fields such as Political Science and Social and Political Psychology . Ideologies serve to aid individuals navigate the complex socio-political world by offering an organization of values, justifying social arrangements, and describing power relations. Applied to research, scholars use diverse and wide-ranging approaches to the measurement of an individual's political ideology. We sought to investigate standard practices by conducting an exhaustive literature review of over 400 scientific articles, spanning from 1930s to 2020s, across social sciences sub-fields. We found and cataloged 358 unique ideological instruments measuring the construct of 'ideology'. We found a high frequency of incomplete reporting of the items used (37.84%), and substantial variance in scoring and scale type even within identical scales (e.g., in 11.54% was the Wilson & Patterson's C-Scale (1968) used as suggested by the original authors). Moreover, for novel scales, validity evidence was sparingly reported (48.25%), with only a few studies reporting statistical or psychometric techniques (58.87%), extraction (25%), or rotation methods (48.39%). Results show that most ideological instruments were either on-the-fly measures (18.16%) or an ad-hoc combination of items (30.17%) present in existing, publicly available surveys. In order to estimate the extent to which operational measures of political ideology overlap regarding item contents, we conducted systematic content analyses of ten ideological scales. Data-driven inductive content analyses revealed 39 ideological topics and a weak mean topic overlap among the ten scales (Jaccard index 0.20). A more theory-driven deductive approach identified 15 topics and a similarly low mean overlap (Jaccard index 0.33). The little to no overlap in approaches to the measurement of ideology suggests that scholars may not be justified in generalizing findings across studies. However, to test this assertion -i.e., whether the routine practice of measuring ideology with one ideological instrument but drawing conclusions about ideology, in general, relying on the assumption that measures are interchangeable is an invalid approach- we conducted two additional studies (N_total = 3619) assessing the comparability, replicability, and validity of ideological instruments with survey data. We applied five different ideological scales to different established theories in the field and showed empirically that results indeed can change as a function of the instrument used. We conclude that findings in research programs measuring ideology-as well as the perseverance of long-standing debates on polarization, ideology in mass publics, ideological asymmetries, and social and economic ideologies as different psychological paths-are, at least in part, susceptible to the idiosyncratic use of measures of ideology and poor measurement practices in general. We then discuss its consequences and recommendations. See https://measuring.ideology.flavioazevedo.com/ for all results and visualizations.
lecionada por Flávio Azevedo. - zoom
Final overview
15 Maio 2023, 11:00 • Rita Sousa
Clarification of questions regarding the work assignment. Feedback on the organization and themes/topics of the UC.
Measuring Ideology: Current practices, its consequences, and recommendations.
3 Maio 2023, 16:00 • Rita Sousa
Political ideologies are foundational to a broad range of social science fields such as Political Science and Social and Political Psychology. Ideologies serve to aid individuals navigate the complex socio-political world by offering an organization of values, justifying social arrangements, and describing power relations. Applied to research, scholars use diverse and wide-ranging approaches to the measurement of an individual's political ideology. We sought to investigate standard practices by conducting an exhaustive literature review of over 400 scientific articles, spanning from 1930s to 2020s, across social sciences sub-fields. We found and cataloged 358 unique ideological instruments measuring the construct of 'ideology'. We found a high frequency of incomplete reporting of the items used (37.84%), and substantial variance in scoring and scale type even within identical scales (e.g., in 11.54% was the Wilson & Patterson's C-Scale (1968) used as suggested by the original authors). Moreover, for novel scales, validity evidence was sparingly reported (48.25%), with only a few studies reporting statistical or psychometric techniques (58.87%), extraction (25%), or rotation methods (48.39%). Results show that most ideological instruments were either on-the-fly measures (18.16%) or an ad-hoc combination of items (30.17%) present in existing, publicly available surveys. In order to estimate the extent to which operational measures of political ideology overlap regarding item contents, we conducted systematic content analyses of ten ideological scales. Data-driven inductive content analyses revealed 39 ideological topics and a weak mean topic overlap among the ten scales (Jaccard index 0.20). A more theory-driven deductive approach identified 15 topics and a similarly low mean overlap (Jaccard index 0.33). The little to no overlap in approaches to the measurement of ideology suggests that scholars may not be justified in generalizing findings across studies. However, to test this assertion -i.e., whether the routine practice of measuring ideology with one ideological instrument but drawing conclusions about ideology, in general, relying on the assumption that measures are interchangeable is an invalid approach- we conducted two additional studies (N_total = 3619) assessing the comparability, replicability, and validity of ideological instruments with survey data. We applied five different ideological scales to different established theories in the field and showed empirically that results indeed can change as a function of the instrument used. We conclude that findings in research programs measuring ideology-as well as the perseverance of long-standing debates on polarization, ideology in mass publics, ideological asymmetries, and social and economic ideologies as different psychological paths-are, at least in part, susceptible to the idiosyncratic use of measures of ideology and poor measurement practices in general. We then discuss its consequences and recommendations. See https://measuring.ideology.flavioazevedo.com/ for all results and visualizations.
lecionada por Flávio Azevedo. - zoom
Technology for THRIVE
27 Abril 2023, 14:00 • Rita Sousa
Research on "Technology for THRIVE", have driven visibility of citizens health information use with insight into patients' work for follow-up of treatment, prevention / early intervention and wellness during care-between-care, and drive "Health Data Activism" that leverage digital opportunities to support citizens' active use; collect EHR data and self-observations, complement / curate the health data, and control with whom the information is shared.
Lecionada por Anne Moen - zoom
Technology for THRIVE
27 Abril 2023, 10:00 • Rita Sousa
Research on "Technology for THRIVE", have driven visibility of citizens health information use with insight into patients' work for follow-up of treatment, prevention / early intervention and wellness during care-between-care, and drive "Health Data Activism" that leverage digital opportunities to support citizens' active use; collect EHR data and self-observations, complement / curate the health data, and control with whom the information is shared.
Lecionada por Anne Moen -zoom