Chapter 13: Standards For Quantitative Research in Diverse Sociocultural Contexts

There are three common methodological mistakes that researchers often make when comparing groups in diverse socio-cultural settings. These include, not taking seriously the issue of measurement equivalence when making between group comparisons, failing to report effect sizes as guides to the practical significance of between group differences, and/or using de facto or poorly validated shortened scales as part of research instrumentation. This chapter seeks to identify a number of minimum standards in socio-cultural research that aim to overcome these methodological research flaws. Firstly, researchers should show evidence of measurement equivalence across groups at the level of factor loadings as a minimum, and should consider more rigorous approaches where research findings will inform policy and/or decision making criteria. Secondly, researchers should inform readers of the practical, rather than just the statistical significance of the findings, that allow readers to interpret their importance. This can be achieved by simply reporting effect sizes along with significance levels. Finally, when researchers are creating shortened scales from longer forms they should, at a minimum, use a standardized approach with evidence of independent validation where possible. It is anticipated that the introduction of such standards will increase the validity of socio-cultural research. Indeed, the implementation of such standards is particularly important for socio-cultural research where groups often differ on several important areas that may impact results but be unrelated to the focus of the study (e.g., differences in reading ability).