The promise of open survey questions-The validation of text-based job satisfaction measures.

Recent advances in computer-aided text analysis (CATA) have allowed organizational scientists to construct reliable and convenient measures from open texts. As yet, there is a lack of research into using CATA to analyze responses to open survey questions and constructing text-based measures of psych...

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Main Authors: Indy Wijngaards, Martijn Burger, Job van Exel
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2019-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0226408&type=printable
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author Indy Wijngaards
Martijn Burger
Job van Exel
author_facet Indy Wijngaards
Martijn Burger
Job van Exel
author_sort Indy Wijngaards
collection DOAJ
description Recent advances in computer-aided text analysis (CATA) have allowed organizational scientists to construct reliable and convenient measures from open texts. As yet, there is a lack of research into using CATA to analyze responses to open survey questions and constructing text-based measures of psychological constructs. In our study, we demonstrated the potential of CATA methods for the construction of text-based job satisfaction measures based on responses to a completely open and semi-open question. To do this, we employed three sentiment analysis techniques: Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count 2015, SentimentR and SentiStrength, and quantified the forms of measurement error they introduced: specific factor error, algorithm error and transient error. We conducted an initial test of the text-based measures' validity, assessing their convergence with closed-question job satisfaction measures. We adopted a time-lagged survey design (Nwave 1 = 996; Nwave 2 = 116) to test our hypotheses. In line with our hypotheses, we found that specific factor error is higher in the open question text-based measure than in the semi-open question text-based measure. As expected, algorithm error was substantial for both the open and semi-open question text-based measures. Transient error in the text-based measures was higher than expected, as it generally exceeded the transient error in the human-coded and the closed job satisfaction question measures. Our initial test of convergent and discriminant validity indicated that the semi-open question text-based measure is especially suitable for measuring job satisfaction. Our article ends with a discussion of limitations and an agenda for future research.
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spelling doaj-art-5f2904fad3c240799d4de7fe7d5a96a12025-08-20T02:55:13ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032019-01-011412e022640810.1371/journal.pone.0226408The promise of open survey questions-The validation of text-based job satisfaction measures.Indy WijngaardsMartijn BurgerJob van ExelRecent advances in computer-aided text analysis (CATA) have allowed organizational scientists to construct reliable and convenient measures from open texts. As yet, there is a lack of research into using CATA to analyze responses to open survey questions and constructing text-based measures of psychological constructs. In our study, we demonstrated the potential of CATA methods for the construction of text-based job satisfaction measures based on responses to a completely open and semi-open question. To do this, we employed three sentiment analysis techniques: Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count 2015, SentimentR and SentiStrength, and quantified the forms of measurement error they introduced: specific factor error, algorithm error and transient error. We conducted an initial test of the text-based measures' validity, assessing their convergence with closed-question job satisfaction measures. We adopted a time-lagged survey design (Nwave 1 = 996; Nwave 2 = 116) to test our hypotheses. In line with our hypotheses, we found that specific factor error is higher in the open question text-based measure than in the semi-open question text-based measure. As expected, algorithm error was substantial for both the open and semi-open question text-based measures. Transient error in the text-based measures was higher than expected, as it generally exceeded the transient error in the human-coded and the closed job satisfaction question measures. Our initial test of convergent and discriminant validity indicated that the semi-open question text-based measure is especially suitable for measuring job satisfaction. Our article ends with a discussion of limitations and an agenda for future research.https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0226408&type=printable
spellingShingle Indy Wijngaards
Martijn Burger
Job van Exel
The promise of open survey questions-The validation of text-based job satisfaction measures.
PLoS ONE
title The promise of open survey questions-The validation of text-based job satisfaction measures.
title_full The promise of open survey questions-The validation of text-based job satisfaction measures.
title_fullStr The promise of open survey questions-The validation of text-based job satisfaction measures.
title_full_unstemmed The promise of open survey questions-The validation of text-based job satisfaction measures.
title_short The promise of open survey questions-The validation of text-based job satisfaction measures.
title_sort promise of open survey questions the validation of text based job satisfaction measures
url https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0226408&type=printable
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