Μεθοδολογικά προβλήματα της κοινωνικής έρευνας: διεύρυνση των επιδράσεων που ασκεί η διατύπωση των ερωτήσεων στις απαντήσεις των υποκειμένων

Περίληψη

The accumulation of theoretical knowledge and the rate of development in the social sciences is low in comparison to the natural sciences. A number of epistemological and methodological problems are responsible for this. The objective of the present study was to investigate the wording effects of questions in survey research. Taking an example the 'post materialism-materialism' distinction of Ronald Inglehart's approach, two types of questionnaires, A and B, are constructed, A containing the original formulations, used by Inglehart, and B containing alternative formulations of the 'materialistic' items. Statistical analysis shows that the alternative formulations cause statistically significant differences in the distribution of the answers between the A and B groups. These findings question the validity of the indices measuring 'materialistic' and 'post materialistic' values used by Inglehart and others.