Victor Thiessen

The Persistence of Social Structure: Cohort, Class and Gender Effects on the Occupational Aspirations and Expectations of Canadian Youth

ABSTRACT From a rational action perspective, one might predict that the occupational aspirations and expectations of Canadian youth would have declined between the 1970s and the 1990s as the youth labour market deteriorated. Whether or not such a shift in the level of occupational goals was observed, a late modernity analysis would predict that social class, gender, and urban-rural residence would become less prominent determinants of aspirations and expectations, in contrast to a social structural prediction of continued strong structural effects. Analyses of baseline data from five longitudinal studies of school-work transitions conducted in Canada during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s lead us to reject the rational action argument—a decline in occupational aspirations and expectations was not observed. Instead, male occupational goals remained largely unchanged while female occupational ambitions rose. Social class continues to have strong independent effects on occupational goals, which appear to be media...

Assessing the quality of survey data

Conceptualizing Data Quality: Respondent Attributes, Study Architecture, and Institutional Practices Conceptualizing Response Quality Study Architecture Institutional Quality Control Practices Data Screening Methodology Chapter Outline Empirical Findings on Quality and Comparability of Survey Data Response Quality Approaches to Detecting Systematic Response Errors Questionnaire Architecture Cognitive Maps in Cross-Cultural Perspective Conclusion Statistical Techniques for Data Screening Principal Component Analysis Categorical Principal Component Analysis Multiple Correspondence Analysis Conclusion Institutional Quality Control Practices Detecting Procedural Deficiencies Data Duplication Detecting Faked and Partly Faked Interviews Data Entry Errors Conclusion Substantive or Methodology-Induced Factors? A Comparison of PCA, CatPCA and MCA Solutions Descriptive Analysis of Personal Feelings Domain Rotation and Structure of Data Conclusion Item Difficulty and Response Quality Descriptive Analysis of Political Efficacy Domain Detecting Patterns with Subset Multiple Correspondence Analysis Moderator Effects Conclusion Questionnaire Architecture Fatigue Effect Question Order Effects Measuring Data Quality: The Dirty Data Index Conclusion Cognitive Competencies and Response Quality Data and Measures Response Quality, Task Simplification and Complexity of Cognitive Maps Conclusion Conclusion

Beyond the digital divide in Canadian schools: from access to competency in the use of information technology

This article provides a descriptive analysis of issues related to the access and use of information and communication technology (ICT) among Canadian youth. In particular, it examines the extent to which inequities in the use of and access to ICT exist among Canadian high school students based on gender, socioeconomic status, and rural-urban location. The analyses suggest that there is a digital divide for Canadian youth in access to and experience with ICT. Rural youth are less likely to have access to computers in the home; however, frequency of use and perceived competency levels are not compromised because they make greater use of computers at school. Female youth and those from families with low levels of parental education are also less likely to have access to computers in their homes; they tend to access computers less frequently and report lower levels of computer skills competency.

DIGITAL DIVIDES AND CAPITAL CONVERSION: The optimal use of information and communication technology for youth reading achievement

Analysis of a nationally representative survey of 15-year-old Canadian youth indicates how capital can be converted from one form to another by examining the use of information and communication technology (ICT) and reading achievements. Overall there is a negligible linear relationship but a pronounced curvilinear one between these variables, suggesting an optimal level of ICT use. This optimal point varies by gender (males are able to use ICT more before negative effects set in), and by parental education (with girls from highly educated homes gaining more from the use of ICT). Implications for policy and practice are discussed.

Should we trust survey data? Assessing response simplification and data fabrication

While many factors, such as unit- and item nonresponse, threaten data quality, we focus on data contamination that arises primarily from task simplification processes. We argue that such processes can occur at two levels. First, respondents themselves may engage in various response strategies that minimize their time and effort in completing the survey. Second, interviewers and other employees of the research institute might take various shortcuts to reduce their time and/or to fulfill the requirements of their contracts; in the simplest form this can be done via copy-and-paste procedures. This paper examines the cross-national quality of the reports from principals of schools participating in the 2009 PISA. We introduce two measures of data quality to document that extreme response simplification characterizes the behavior of substantial numbers of school principals in numerous countries. Additionally, we discovered strong evidence of data fabrication in several countries.

Perceived Corruption, Trust, and Interviewer Behavior in 26 European Countries

Identifying illicit behavior in survey research is inherently problematic, since self-reports are untrustworthy. We argue that fraudulent interviewers can, however, be identified through statistica...