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Home Issues Backissues Volume 31, No.1 Analysis of Test-Retest Reliability in Taiwan's Election and Democratization Study

Analysis of Test-Retest Reliability in Taiwan's Election and Democratization Study

Yi-Ching Shiao
2006 / 11
Volume 13, No.2

pp.117-144
10.6612/tjes.2006.13.02.117-144

Abstract

The major purpose of this article is to analyze the test-retest reliability in the series of Taiwan's Election and Democratization Study (2001, 2003 and 2004P), and explore what factors influencing the questionnaire reliability. This research finds that TEDS has consistent questionnaire reliability although the degree of reliability varies with subjects. The ”voting intention” has the highest reliability, followed by ”party identification”. Attitude for the ”position of independence/unification” is the third, ahead of the ”Taiwanese/Chinese identity” and the ”presidential candidate image”. Attitudes about democratic evaluation, including the ”degree of satisfiaction about the practice of democracy in Taiwan” and ”comparing the DPP vs. KMT government” and ”democratic governing” are the least reliable measurements. It is also found that there is no significant difference in reliability regarding the same subject across different datasets of TEDS.
The respondent's education is the important factor of questionnaire reliability. The high-educated respondent has more consistent response for the same question in different interview than others. Besides, female respondents has more stable political attitude than male in TEDS 2001 and TEDS 2004P. The shorter the period between the first interview to the second one, the more stable attitude respondents show, especially in TEDS 2001 and TEDS 2003. Last, no matter who the interviewer is, test-retest reliability is the same. In other words, the TEDS interviewers obey ”standard interview principle” during the surveys.

Keywords

test-retest reliability

TEDS

opinion survey