Assessing Data Quality: An Approach and An Application

Kelly McMann, Daniel Pemstein, Brigitte Seim, Jan Teorell and Staffan Lindberg

Political Analysis, 2022, vol. 30, issue 3, 426-449

Abstract: Political scientists routinely face the challenge of assessing the quality (validity and reliability) of measures in order to use them in substantive research. While stand-alone assessment tools exist, researchers rarely combine them comprehensively. Further, while a large literature informs data producers, data consumers lack guidance on how to assess existing measures for use in substantive research. We delineate a three-component practical approach to data quality assessment that integrates complementary multimethod tools to assess: (1) content validity; (2) the validity and reliability of the data generation process; and (3) convergent validity. We apply our quality assessment approach to the corruption measures from the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project, both illustrating our rubric and unearthing several quality advantages and disadvantages of the V-Dem measures, compared to other existing measures of corruption.

Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:polals:v:30:y:2022:i:3:p:426-449_7

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