Preprints and Reprints of Papers on Anchoring Vignettes

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• Comparing Incomparable Survey Responses: New Tools for Anchoring Vignettes by Gary King and Jonathan Wand. (Version: 1/5/2004) Anchoring vignettes were introduced by King, Murray, Salomon, and Tandon (2003) to correct survey data when respondents interpret the same questions in different ways. We summarize this approach and then develop new methods both for choosing vignettes and for analyzing the resulting data. With surveys from several countries, we illustrate how these techniques can greatly improve the ability of anchoring vignettes to extract information from survey data. qForthcoming, Political Analysis

• Comparability of self rated health: cross sectional multi-country survey using anchoring vignettes Joshua A Salomon, Ajay Tandon, Christopher J L Murray, and the World Health Survey Pilot Study Collaborating Group. Objective To examine differences in expectations for health using anchoring vignettes, which describe fixed levels of health on dimensions such as mobility. Design Cross sectional survey of adults living in the community. Setting China, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Turkey, and United Arab Emirates. Participants 3012 men and women aged 18 years and older (self ratings); subsample of 406 (vignette ratings). Main outcome measures Self rated mobility levels and ratings of hypothetical vignettes using the same questions and response categories. Results Consistent rankings of vignettes are evidence that vignettes are understood in similar ways in different settings, and internal consistency of orderings on two mobility questions indicates good comprehension. Variation in vignette ratings across age groups suggests that expectations for mobility decline with age. Comparison of responses to two different mobility questions supports the assumption that individual ratings of hypothetical vignettes relate to expectations for health in similar ways as self assessments. Conclusions Anchoring vignettes could provide a powerful tool for understanding and adjusting for the influence of different health expectations on self ratings of health. Incorporating anchoring vignettes in surveys can improve the comparability of self reported measusures. published in the BMJ 2004, 328, 258 (31 January.)

• Enhancing the Validity and Cross-cultural Comparability of Survey Research by Gary King, Christopher J.L. Murray, Joshua A. Salomon, and Ajay Tandon. We address two long-standing problems in survey research: measuring complicated concepts, such as political freedom or efficacy, that researchers define best with reference to examples; and what to do when respondents interpret identical survey questions in different ways. Scholars have long addressed these problems with approaches to reduce incomparability, such as writing more concrete questions -- with uneven success. Our alternative is to measure directly whatever incomparability exists and to correct for it. We measure incomparability via respondents' assessments, on the same scale as the self-assessments to be corrected, of hypothetical individuals described in short vignettes. Since actual levels of the vignettes are invariant over respondents, variability in vignette answers reveals incomparability. Our corrections require either simple recodes or a statistical model designed to save survey administration costs. With analysis, simulations, and cross-national surveys, we show how these problems can drastically mislead survey researchers and how our approach can fix them. Published in the American Political Science Review. [The November issue of the APSR included this article, but was based on the wrong set of proofs. The full corrected article was republished in the February issue. See the PDF above.]