Detecting Fabricated Interviews Using the Hamming Distance
In the research literature on survey methodology, there is considerable discussion of interviewer effects and how to prevent data fabrication; however, there is little discussion on the detection of data fabrication by interviewers in published data, and there are even fewer papers examining the ph...
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Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
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European Survey Research Association
2023-08-01
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Series: | Survey Research Methods |
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Online Access: | https://ojs.ub.uni-konstanz.de/srm/article/view/7961 |
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author | Jörg Blasius Lukas Sausen |
author_facet | Jörg Blasius Lukas Sausen |
author_sort | Jörg Blasius |
collection | DOAJ |
description |
In the research literature on survey methodology, there is considerable discussion of interviewer effects and how to prevent data fabrication; however, there is little discussion on the detection of data fabrication by interviewers in published data, and there are even fewer papers examining the phenomenon of employees of survey research organizations fabricating data. Among them, Blasius and Thiessen (2015) show for the PISA 2009 principal data that employees of survey research organizations in some countries duplicate cases to generate data. While the authors focus on exact copies, more sophisticated data fabrication techniques might include duplicating whole cases and changing a few entries afterwards. By calculating Hamming distances and applying them to the same data, we show that – in some countries in particular – large parts of the data have been duplicated, and most of them have been retrospectively modified to a small degree.
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first_indexed | 2024-03-11T18:33:29Z |
format | Article |
id | doaj.art-0794be5f30984ba8b851ea2378175fd0 |
institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
issn | 1864-3361 |
language | English |
last_indexed | 2024-03-11T18:33:29Z |
publishDate | 2023-08-01 |
publisher | European Survey Research Association |
record_format | Article |
series | Survey Research Methods |
spelling | doaj.art-0794be5f30984ba8b851ea2378175fd02023-10-13T07:35:20ZengEuropean Survey Research AssociationSurvey Research Methods1864-33612023-08-0117210.18148/srm/2023.v17i2.7961Detecting Fabricated Interviews Using the Hamming DistanceJörg BlasiusLukas Sausen0University of Bonn In the research literature on survey methodology, there is considerable discussion of interviewer effects and how to prevent data fabrication; however, there is little discussion on the detection of data fabrication by interviewers in published data, and there are even fewer papers examining the phenomenon of employees of survey research organizations fabricating data. Among them, Blasius and Thiessen (2015) show for the PISA 2009 principal data that employees of survey research organizations in some countries duplicate cases to generate data. While the authors focus on exact copies, more sophisticated data fabrication techniques might include duplicating whole cases and changing a few entries afterwards. By calculating Hamming distances and applying them to the same data, we show that – in some countries in particular – large parts of the data have been duplicated, and most of them have been retrospectively modified to a small degree. https://ojs.ub.uni-konstanz.de/srm/article/view/7961Fabricated data, string distances, PISA data |
spellingShingle | Jörg Blasius Lukas Sausen Detecting Fabricated Interviews Using the Hamming Distance Survey Research Methods Fabricated data, string distances, PISA data |
title | Detecting Fabricated Interviews Using the Hamming Distance |
title_full | Detecting Fabricated Interviews Using the Hamming Distance |
title_fullStr | Detecting Fabricated Interviews Using the Hamming Distance |
title_full_unstemmed | Detecting Fabricated Interviews Using the Hamming Distance |
title_short | Detecting Fabricated Interviews Using the Hamming Distance |
title_sort | detecting fabricated interviews using the hamming distance |
topic | Fabricated data, string distances, PISA data |
url | https://ojs.ub.uni-konstanz.de/srm/article/view/7961 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT jorgblasius detectingfabricatedinterviewsusingthehammingdistance AT lukassausen detectingfabricatedinterviewsusingthehammingdistance |