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6 - Data Validation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2020

Michael Coppedge
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame, Indiana
John Gerring
Affiliation:
University of Texas, Austin
Adam Glynn
Affiliation:
Emory University, Atlanta
Carl Henrik Knutsen
Affiliation:
Universitetet i Oslo
Staffan I. Lindberg
Affiliation:
Göteborgs Universitet, Sweden
Daniel Pemstein
Affiliation:
North Dakota State University
Brigitte Seim
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Svend-Erik Skaaning
Affiliation:
Aarhus Universitet, Denmark
Jan Teorell
Affiliation:
Lunds Universitet, Sweden
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Summary

Scholars and policy makers need systematic assessments of the validity of the measures produced by V-Dem. In Chapter 6, we present our approach to comparative data validation – the set of steps we take to evaluate the precision, accuracy, and reliability of our measures, both in isolation and compared to extant measures of the same concepts. Our approach assesses the degree to which measures align with shared concepts (content validation), shared rules of translation (data generation assessment), and shared realities (convergent validation). Within convergent validity, we execute two convergent validity tests. First, we examine convergent validity as it is typically conceived – examining convergence between V-Dem measures and extant measures. Second, we evaluate the level of convergence across coders, considering the individual coder and country traits that predict coder convergence. Throughout the chapter, we focus on three indices included in the V-Dem data set: polyarchy, corruption, and core civil society. These three concepts collectively provide a “hard test” for the validity of our data, representing a range of existing measurement approaches, challenges, and solutions.

Type
Chapter
Information
Varieties of Democracy
Measuring Two Centuries of Political Change
, pp. 130 - 177
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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