The Comparability of Measurements of Attitudes toward Immigration in the European Social Survey

Abstract

International survey data sets are analyzed with increasing frequency to investigate and compare attitudes toward immigration and to examine the contextual factors that shape these attitudes. However, international comparisons of abstract, psychological constructs require the measurements to be equivalent; that is, they should measure the same concept on the same measurement scale. Traditional approaches to assessing measurement equivalence quite often lead to the conclusion that measurements are cross-nationally incomparable, but they have been criticized for being overly strict. In the current study, we present an alternative Bayesian approach that assesses whether measurements are approximately (rather than exactly) equivalent. This approach allows small variations in measurement parameters across groups. Taking a