MPSDS JPSM Seminar Series
April 5, 2022
12:00 - 1:00 EST

Stephanie Morales is a second-year Ph.D. student at the University of Michigan's Program in Survey and Data Science. She holds a BA in Psychology and an MA in Sociology. She is interested in cross-cultural surveys, measurement error in data collection with racial/ethnic minorities, and adaptive survey design.

Assessing Cross-Cultural Comparability of Self-Rated Health and Its Conceptualization through Web Probing

Self-rated health (SRH) is a widely used question across different fields, as it is simple to administer yet has been shown to predict mortality. SRH asks respondents to rate their overall health typically using Likert-type response scales (i.e., excellent, very good, good, fair, poor). Although SRH is commonly used, few studies have examined its conceptualization from the respondents’ point of view and even less so for differences in its conceptualization across diverse populations. We aim to assess the comparability of SRH across different cultural groups by investigating the factors that respondents consider when responding to the SRH question. We included an open-ended probe asking what respondents thought when responding to SRH in web surveys conducted in five countries: Great Britain, Germany, the U.S., Spain, and Mexico. In the U.S., we targeted six racial/ethnic and linguistic groups: English-dominant Koreans, Korean-dominant Koreans, English-dominant Latinos, Spanish-dominant Latinos, non-Latino Black Americans, and non-Latino White Americans. One novelty of our study is allowing multiple attribute codes (e.g., health behaviors, illness) per respondent and tone (e.g., in the direction of positive or negative health or neutral) of the probing responses for each attribute, allowing us 1) to assess respondents’ thinking process holistically and 2) to examine whether and how respondents mix attributes. Our study compares the number of reported attributes and tone by cultural groups and integrates SRH responses in the analysis. This study aims to provide a deeper understanding of SRH by revealing the cognitive processes among diverse populations and is expected to shed light on its cross-cultural comparability.

Michigan Program in Survey and Data Science (MPSDS)
The University of Michigan Program in Survey Methodology was established in 2001 seeking to train future generations of survey and data scientists. In 2021, we changed our name to the Michigan Program in Survey and Data Science. Our curriculum is concerned with a broad set of data sources including survey data, but also including social media posts, sensor data, and administrative records, as well as analytic methods for working with these new data sources. And we bring to data science a focus on data quality — which is not at the center of traditional data science. The new name speaks to what we teach and work on at the intersection of social research and data. The program offers doctorate and master of science degrees and a certificate through the University of Michigan. The program's home is the Institute for Social Research, the world's largest academically-based social science research institute.

Summer Institute in Survey Research Techniques (SISRT)
The mission of the Summer Institute is to provide rigorous and high quality graduate training in all phases of survey research. The program teaches state-of-the-art practice and theory in the design, implementation, and analysis of surveys. The Summer Institute in Survey Research Techniques has presented courses on the sample survey since the summer of 1948, and has offered such courses every summer since. Graduate-level courses through the Program in Survey and Data Science are offered from June 5 through July 28 and available to enroll in as a Summer Scholar.

The Summer Institute uses the sample survey as the basic instrument for the scientific measurement of human activity. It presents sample survey methods in courses designed to meet the educational needs of those specializing in social and behavioral research such as professionals in business, public health, natural resources, law, medicine, nursing, social work, and many other domains of study.