Hoist the flag! The future of measurement instruments for the social sciences
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EDITORIAL
Open Access
Hoist the flag! The future of measurement instruments for the social sciences Matthias Bluemke1,2 and Beatrice Rammstedt2* A Two-Year Anniversary Around this time of the year 2020, we celebrate the second anniversary of the journal Measurement Instruments for the Social Sciences. We are pleased with what the journal has achieved over the course of roughly two years. The starting point for the journal’s inception was the heart-felt need of aiding scientists with documenting their endeavors for sound measurement of specific constructs―be these constructs from sociological, psychological, educational, or economic contexts. And yet, the journal focus is clearly broader than that. It pertains to any methodological advances in the field of survey research and social research in general, and it likewise reflects the accumulative knowledge gathered on all kinds of measurement in the social sciences, whether drawn from the context of international social surveys or large-scale assessments in education. All these aspects together should render its content highly practical. Best practice for item generation, issues of questionnaire translation and adaptation, and the overarching topic of achieving cross-cultural comparability and validity—these topics are too easily forgotten when authors experience the heat of trying to sell their ideas to substantive journals. What Have We Achieved After Two Years? At the time of writing, fourteen articles have been published fully open-access, and another seven manuscripts are currently being evaluated, while one is undergoing revision. Despite challenges for authors, say, due to general obstacles for scientific enterprises thanks to the recent Corona pandemic, we are delighted that a number of reputable authors have chosen Measurement Instruments for the Social Sciences as a scientific outlet for some of their prime work. We are positively surprised * Correspondence: [email protected] 2 GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Mannheim, Germany Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
that submitting authors (as well as reviewers) come from a variety of countries around the globe that make this journal a truly international enterprise from the beginning. Sometimes the submitted manuscripts simply fall outside the scope of the journal. It is also true that, at this time, authors from Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic (WEIRD) societies are more likely to succeed than authors from non-WEIRD countries (Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010). When designing the journal and its different article types, we were convinced that outcomes of wellplanned—but unfortunately often only small—scientific meetings are highly relevant for a broader audience. Therefore, we designed the article category Meeting Report, which is also fully peer-reviewed. Now we are pleased that already two such meeting reports have been published—on translation/adaptation and cross-cultural comparability—that can help reignite an arti
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