Abstract
Not all respondents to surveys apply their minds or understand the posed questions, and as such provided answers which lacks coherence, and this threatens the integrity of the research. Casual inspection of the 10 item Big Five Inventory (BFI-10), include in the dataset of the World Values Survey (WVS), suggested that random responses may be common. The objective of this study is to specify the percentage of cases which include incoherent or contradictory responses and to test the extent to which the removal of these cases will improve quality of the dataset. The WVS data on the BFI-10, measuring the Big Five Personality (B5P), in South Africa (N=3 531), was used. Incoherent or contradictory responses were removed. Then the cases from the cleaned-up dataset were analysed for their theoretical validity. Only 1 612 (45.7%) cases were identified as not including incoherent or contradictory responses. Also, the cleaned-up data did not mirror the B5P-structure, as was envisaged. The test for common method bias was negative. In most cases the responses were incoherent. Cleaning up the data did not improve the psychometric properties of the BFI-10. This raises concerns about the quality of the WVS data, the BFI-10, and the universality of B5P-theory. Given these results, it would be unwise to use the BFI-10 in South Africa. Researchers are alerted to do a proper assessment of the psychometric properties of instruments before they use it, particularly in a cross-cultural setting.
Presenters
Renier SteynProfessor, Graduate School of Business Leadership, University of South Africa, Gauteng, South Africa
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Research ethics, Data integrity, Measurement invariance, Common method bias
