Sources of Inconsistency in the Measurement of Religious Affiliation: Evidence from a Survey Experiment and Cognitive Interviews

IF 2.4 1区哲学 0 RELIGION Sociology of Religion Pub Date : 2023-11-14 DOI:10.1093/socrel/srad048

Philip S Brenner, Jill LaPlante, Tracy L Reed?

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Abstract Research has argued that estimates of the percentage of Americans without a religious affiliation may be influenced by a measurement artifact caused by the poor reliability of conventional survey questions. Using a question-order experiment and cognitive interviews, we assess religious affiliation measures like those commonly used on surveys. A filter question and a full question presenting a list of religious affiliations as response options are asked in a random order. Findings suggest that nominally religious respondents have higher odds of reporting an affiliation to the full question than the filter. They describe nominal or residual religious affiliations, highlighting the role of family connections and religious pasts in their affiliation reports. Conversely, highly religious and nonreligious respondents are, respectively, only slightly and not at all influenced by question characteristics. Findings suggest that using a filter question before a full question avoids this source of inconsistency and yields better data quality.

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宗教信仰测量不一致的来源:来自调查实验和认知访谈的证据

研究认为，对没有宗教信仰的美国人百分比的估计可能会受到传统调查问题可靠性差所导致的测量误差的影响。使用问题顺序实验和认知访谈，我们评估宗教信仰的措施，就像调查中常用的那样。一个过滤问题和一个完整的问题以随机的顺序提出了一系列宗教信仰作为回答选项。调查结果表明，名义上有宗教信仰的受访者对完整问题的隶属关系报告的几率高于过滤者。他们描述名义上或剩余的宗教信仰，强调家庭关系和宗教过去在他们的信仰报告中的作用。相反，高度宗教信仰和非宗教信仰的受访者分别只受到问题特征的轻微影响，根本不受影响。研究结果表明，在完整问题之前使用过滤问题可以避免这种不一致的来源，并产生更好的数据质量。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Sociology of Religion Multiple-

CiteScore

7.50

自引率

6.50%

发文量

期刊介绍： Sociology of Religion, the official journal of the Association for the Sociology of Religion, is published quarterly for the purpose of advancing scholarship in the sociological study of religion. The journal publishes original (not previously published) work of exceptional quality and interest without regard to substantive focus, theoretical orientation, or methodological approach. Although theoretically ambitious, empirically grounded articles are the core of what we publish, we also welcome agenda setting essays, comments on previously published works, critical reflections on the research act, and interventions into substantive areas or theoretical debates intended to push the field ahead. Sociology of Religion has published work by renowned scholars from Nancy Ammerman to Robert Wuthnow. Robert Bellah, Niklas Luhmann, Talcott Parsons, and Pitirim Sorokin all published in the pages of this journal. More recently, articles published in Sociology of Religion have won the ASA Religion Section’s Distinguished Article Award (Rhys Williams in 2000) and the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion’s Distinguished Article Award (Matthew Lawson in 2000 and Fred Kniss in 1998). Building on this legacy, Sociology of Religion aspires to be the premier English-language publication for sociological scholarship on religion and an essential source for agenda-setting work in the field.