Juxtaposing Acquired and Required Skills: Latent Class Analysis of Self-Assessment Scales in an International Survey

Abstract

Ensuring comparability of Likert-style items across different countries is a widespread challenge for authors of large-scale international surveys. Using data from the EUROGRADUATE Pilot Survey, this study employs a series of latent class analyses to explore which response patterns emerge from self-assessment of acquired and required skills of higher education graduates and how these patterns vary between eight participating countries. Results show that countries differ in the number of classes which most accurately fit the data structure. The effort to overcome national specifics by combining the levels of acquired and required skills into a single measurement of skill surplus/deficit reduces heterogeneity of patterns across countries and slightly increases comparability, yet the notion that respondents understand the scale in the same way across countries (measurement invariance) is not supported.