IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/soinre/v179y2025i1d10.1007_s11205-025-03622-w.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Effect of Cognitive Pretests on Measurement Invariance and Reliability in Quality of Life Measures: An Evaluation in Refugee Studies

Author

Listed:
  • Natalja Menold

    (Dresden University of Technology)

Abstract

The issue evaluated was how cross-cultural cognitive pretests affect the reliability and comparability of data when studying refugees and using cross-language comparisons. Three instruments employed to assess general and health-related quality of life were revised based on the findings of cognitive pretests. The versions before and after cognitive pretests were randomly assigned to respondents in two web survey studies. The first study recruited Arabic and Dari speaking refugees (N = 3448) via Facebook. The second study used a random sample (N = 610) of Arabic-speaking refugees and the German-speaking population. The comparability of data was evaluated by means of two popular measurement invariance analysis methods (exact and Bayesian measurement invariance analysis). These methods rely on factor analysis and thus enable the evaluation of the comparability of factor structure (configural invariance), the loadings or weights an item has on the factor (metric invariance), and the intercepts of an item on latent factor (scalar invariance). The revision of instruments on the basis of cognitive pretests primarily yielded positive outcomes with regard to reliability and cross-language comparability with respect to the factorial structure and loadings. However, the outcomes pertaining to scalar invariance were more equivocal. Cognitive pretests can therefore help to improve measurement quality, but further research is needed on the cross-cultural questionnaire design to make revisions with respect to cross-cultural comparability more conclusive.

Suggested Citation

  • Natalja Menold, 2025. "Effect of Cognitive Pretests on Measurement Invariance and Reliability in Quality of Life Measures: An Evaluation in Refugee Studies," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 179(1), pages 527-548, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:179:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1007_s11205-025-03622-w
    DOI: 10.1007/s11205-025-03622-w
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11205-025-03622-w
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11205-025-03622-w?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:179:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1007_s11205-025-03622-w. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.