Abortion Attitudes, 1984-1987-1988: Effects of Item Order and Dimensionality

Abstract

The comparability of surveys is often hampered by differences in the item order of presentation. The major focus of the present study was to investigate whether a general item or a specific item at the beginning of the questionnaire would affect the endorsement as well as the scalability of a set of attitude items. By using a quasi-A-B-A experimental design for the six abortion items that appeared in the Edmonton Area Survey for the years 1984, 1987, and 1988, we found that the order of presentation of the items affected dramatically the endorsement of the abortion items. Approval of a general item was considerably higher when asked first than when asked after a specific item. In contrast, it was shown by means of a nonparametric item response theory model (the Mokken scale analysis) that the unidimensionality of the six abortion items was not affected by the manipulations of item order (i.e., the six abortion items measured the same concept in the three surveys). It was concluded that the six items are unidimensional and, therefore, create a single scale to measure the change in abortion attitudes across the three periods.

Design and use of questionnaires: a review of best practice applicable to surveys of health service staff and patients

“…Of these, three were health-related randomised controlled trials, [107][108][109] nine were randomised trials on nonhealth topics [110][111][112][113][114][115][116][117][118] and two were health-related historically controlled studies. 119,120 Nine involved interviewer-adminis-tration (in eight cases by telephone), four were postal surveys and one a self-completion survey conducted in a workplace. As with those on question wording, the quality of the studies was generally high, although none reported explicitly that sample size calculations were based on a power calculation.…”

“…• general context effects 108,110,112,114,115,117,118,120 • ordering of general versus specific questions 107,111,117,119 • contiguous versus non-contiguous questions 113,116 • ordering of disease-specific versus generic health status instruments. 109…”

Affinity-tagged SMAD1 and SMAD5 mouse lines reveal transcriptional reprogramming mechanisms during early pregnancy

“…It is also noteworthy that loss of function of Fgfr2 in the mouse uterus leads to luminal epithelial stratification and peri-implantation pregnancy loss ( Filant et al, 2014 ). Moreover, Mmp7 and Wnt7b are upregulated upon E2 stimulation and participate in the re-epithelialization of the endometrium and implantation process, respectively ( Russo et al, 2009 ; Tenvergert et al, 1992 ; Hayashi et al, 2009 ). In accordance with the phenotype of hyperproliferative endometrial epithelium during early pregnancy, observed in SMAD1/5 cKO mice, we demonstrated that the suppression of key E2-responsive genes, such as Fgfr2 and Mmp7, by SMAD1/5 maintains the precise balance between E2 and P4.…”

Affinity-tagged SMAD1 and SMAD5 mouse lines reveal transcriptional reprogramming mechanisms during early pregnancy

“…It is also noteworthy that loss of function of Fgfr2 in the mouse uterus leads to luminal epithelial stratification and peri-implantation pregnancy loss 62 . Moreover, Mmp7 and Wnt7b are up-regulated upon E2 stimulation and participate in the re-epithelialization of the endometrium and implantation process, respectively [64][65][66] .…”