More on the value of split ballots

Der Autor diskutiert forschungspraktische Probleme, die sich im Rahmen der kognitiven Testung bei Umfragen ergeben, z.B. das Problem, dass alternative Formulierungen von gleichen Fragestellungen zu unterschiedlichen Bewertungen der Daten führen können. Er verdeutlicht anhand von sechs Tabellen die Unterschiede bei den erhobenen Daten, die aus zwei Forschungsprojekten stammen, in denen sehr ähnliche Befragungsmethoden eingesetzt worden sind. (ICI

Why it is easy to write bad questions

Es gibt mindestens acht Standards, denen Fragen in Fragebögen entsprechen sollten. Ein Grund dafür, dass Fragen falsch gestellt werden, ist der, dass Forscher einige Standards berücksichtigen, andere aber ignorieren. Ein komplexeres Problem besteht darin, dass eine nach einem Standard gute Frage gemessen an einem anderen Standard eine schlechte Frage sein kann. Darüberhinaus liefern die typischen Evaluierungsverfahren von Pretests und Fragen keine Informationen über alle acht Standards. Wenn über einen Standard keine Informationen vorliegen, kann er leicht vernachlässigt werden. Forscher verwenden zudem gerne Fragen, die schon einmal gestellt wurden, auch wenn die Schwächen dieser Fragen bereits bekannt sind. Dieser Aufsatz stellt die acht Standards vor und diskutiert Konflikte zwischen den einzelnen Standards, Schwierigkeiten bei der Evaluation von Fragen und Implikationen für die Umfrageforschung. (ICEÜbers)'There are at least 8 standards that survey questions should meet. One reason it is easy to write poor questions is that researchers focus on some standards but ignore others. A more complex problem is posed by the fact that designing a question that is good according to one standard can make it a poor question when judged against another standard. Third, typical pretest and question evaluation procedures do not provide information about all 8 standards. It is easy to ignore a standard if there is no information about it. Finally, researchers often are committed to questions that have been used previously, even when there is evidence that they are flawed. This paper presents the 8 standards, the ways in which they can be in conflict, the challenges of evaluating questions, and the implications for standard survey practice.' (author's abstract)

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Education, Interaction, And Interview Performance.

PhDSocial psychologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/184343/2/6614520.pd

Evolution of leaf developmental mechanisms.

Leaves are determinate organs produced by the shoot apical meristem. Land plants demonstrate a large range of variation in leaf form. Here we discuss evolution of leaf form in the context of our current understanding of leaf development, as this has emerged from molecular genetic studies in model organisms. We also discuss specific examples where parallel studies of development in different species have helped understanding how diversification of leaf form may occur in nature