Scale recoding in sociological researcha new validation methodology. An application to a political survey

  1. Abascal, Elena 1
  2. Díaz de Rada, Vidal 1
  3. García Lautre, Ignacio 1
  4. Landaluce, M. Isabel 2
  1. 1 Universidad Pública de Navarra, España
  2. 2 Universidad de Burgos, España
Journal:
Revista internacional de sociología

ISSN: 0034-9712

Year of publication: 2019

Volume: 77

Issue: 2

Type: Article

DOI: 10.3989/RIS.2019.77.2.17.088 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openOpen access editor

More publications in: Revista internacional de sociología

Abstract

The recoding of scale variables is a common step in the analysis of survey data. It is not immune, however, to certain pitfalls, such as the introduction of biases, or potential data distortion. This paper presents a methodological proposal for the validation of any recoding process, whether it involves metric- or categorical-scale variables. The aim of the proposed methodology is to verify the adequacy of the re-codification by indicating how close in structure the re-coded data are to the original data. The basis of the methodology is a factorial analysis technique, Multiple Factor Analysis (MFA), which is performed on a global data table juxtaposing the original-scale and recoded-scale data. The procedure is tested on real-world data drawn from a public opinion poll on perceptions of leading politicians in the Spanish Parliament.

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