Hi Anna

On 24 Jun 2005 at 16:52, A P wrote:

> I'm in the process of analyzing data from an international customer > loyalty/satisfaction study. In the study we ask the respondent to rate > their satisfaction (on a scale of 1-10) with a wide variety of different > experiences. > > Part of this analysis will include comparing the results between > countries. One of the questions I anticipate getting is how does > culture play into the differences we see.

My experience is that problems can occur in the translation of scales e.g. translating "slightly agree" into say Italian. In other words, nuances in word meanings have different interpretations when translated back into english.

> > Does anyone have any experience/information on how to handle cultural > differences when analyzing data from rating questions?

Also the way each country uses scales, some people seem to be better at using the whole of the scale even though the ends of the scales might be anchored using "strongly agree" and "strongly agree". Perhaps a useful way of analying the scales so you can make cross country comparisons would be to normalise the scales i.e. subtract the means and divide by the standard deviation.

I wonder what Philip Moore might say, he has some very sensible things to say about analysing likert sclaes.

Regards,

-- David