Applied multivariate analysis for social scientists - measurement

Measurement in survey research often involves combining answers to several questions, such that the result is a measurement of a latent variable (e.g., degree of political participation, religious belief, self-esteem, political knowledge). After a general introduction to the problem of measurement in the social sciences, traditional measurement models (factor analysis and reliability analysis) are presented and applied. They are then compared with more recently developed measurement methods, known as Item Response Theory (IRT), in particular Mokken models for non-parametric measurement.