Survey research is a popular methodology used to gather data on a myriad of phenomena. Self-report victim surveys administered by the Federal government are used to substantially broaden our understanding of the nature and extent of crime. A potential source of nonsampling error, respondent fatigue is thought to manifest in contemporary victim surveys, as respondents become "test wise" after repeated exposure to survey instruments. Using a special longitudinal data file, the presence and influence of respondent fatigue in national self-report victim surveys is examined from three perspectives. Collectively, results provide a comprehensive look at how respondent fatigue may impact crime estimates produced by national self-report victim surveys.

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The contemporary media landscape invites us to experience a belonging to various distant places, mourn the victims of faraway disasters, expose ourselves to foreign cultures and engage in political issues in places far from our local context of living. In other words, we are invited to become citizens of the world – cosmopolitans. But are we? And if so, how is such cosmopolitanism expressed in a given society, under what social conditions, and in relation to what media practices? Contemporary social theory depicts a global or cosmopolitan mode of orienting in the world as paradigmatic of social life in global modernity. To date, little is known about the structural realities of such orientations. Against this backdrop, the aim of the present study is to understand the potentially “cosmopolitan” character of peoples’ outlooks and practices, and the societal conditions in which they can be identified. On the one hand, the aim of the study is to contribute to the largely theoretical accounts of the “cosmopolitan” character of social life in present times, andon the other, to understand the specific role of various media practices in the process generally described as “cosmopolitanization”. Results yielded by a national survey deployed in Sweden (n = 1 025) show that the distribution of various cosmopolitan dispositions abides by logics of social stratification. In tandem with previous research, cosmopolitanism – when studied “from below” – has a tendency to emerge in more privileged spheres of society. Being “connected” and simply living in a potentially global media landscape does not nullify this pattern. Contrary to significant parts of popular and scholarly conviction, the media is no uniform, all-encompassing environment operating as a force of cosmopolitanization across all social strata. The results of this study point towards a “mediatized cosmopolitanism” that is impossible to disentangle from social context and the power dynamics pertaining to that context. / Det samtida medielandskapet tillåter oss att känna tillhörigheter till en mängd olika platser, sörja offer för katastrofer i fjärran länder, exponera oss för främmande kulturella uttryck och engagera oss i politiska frågor rörande platser långt bortom vårt lokala sammanhang. Vi tycks med andra ord bli inbjuda att bli världsmedborgare – kosmopoliter. Men är vi det? Hur uttrycks i sådana fall kosmopolitismen i ett givet samhälle - under vilka förhållanden och i relation till vilka mediepraktiker? Samtida samhällsvetenskaplig teori framställer ett globalt-, eller kosmopolitiskt förhållningsssätt som paradigmatiskt för det sociala livet i den globala moderniteten. Dock finns inte tillräckligt underlag för att förstå den strukturella verkligheten kring sådana förhållningssätt. Mot den bakgrunden är syftet med föreliggande studie att förstå den potentiellt sett ”kosmopolitiska” karaktären på människors förhållningssätt och praktiker och de förhållanden i vilka sådana orienteringar kommer till uttryck. Således är syftet å ena sidan att bidra empiriskt till teoretiska beskrivningar av vår kosmopolitiska samtid. Å andra sidan söker studien också förstå den specifika rollen av olika mediepraktiker i relation till den process som beskrivits som ”kosmopolitaniseringen”. Resultat från en nationell enkätundersökning i Sverige (n = 1 025) visar på en social stratifiering av kosmopolitiska orienteringar. I linje med tidigare forskning påvisar föreliggande studie att kosmopolitism studerad “underifrån” har en tendens att framförallt komma till uttryck i mer priviligierade samhällssfärer. Att vara “sammanlänkad” och helt enkelt leva i ett potentiellt sett globalt medielandskap motverkar inte den tendensen. I motsats till både populära och akademiska utsagor utgör inte medierna en unison och allomfattande miljö som sätter igång en process av kosmopolitanisering i alla samhällets skikt. Studiens resultat pekar istället mot en ”medialiserad kosmopolitism” som är omöjlig att förstå utan att ta hänsyn till sitt sociala sammanhang och de maktförhållanden som råder i det sammanhanget.

Of the many potential and espoused outcomes of higher education, it was satisfaction that rose to prominence for Alexander Astin, stating, “it is difficult to argue that student satisfaction can be legitimately subordinated to any other education outcome” (1993, p. 273). This high endorsement of the construct of satisfaction is backed by a plethora of arguments of its importance for college and university decision makers. A thorough and accurate rendering of student satisfaction measurement is requisite. To calculate student satisfaction as the magnitude of item endorsement leaves a measure that is sample specific. The goal of a universal and unidimensional measure is only advanced by determining which items do or do not contribute to a model of linearity and unidimensionality. This research utilizes the Rasch model to advance exploration of the variable of student satisfaction. Using data collected from the Noel-Levitz Student Satisfaction Inventory, analysis was conducted to determine if reported ascribed importance and experienced satisfaction adhered to the assumption of the Rasch model. Results suggest that student satisfaction and ascribed importance do adhere to these assumptions of measurement, but only after ordinal rankings of dissatisfaction are collapsed into a single entity. The determined separation of satisfaction and dissatisfaction likens Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory. Additional discussion and implications focus on contrasting analysis when applying the Rasch analysis relative to classical test theory, recommendations of modified instrument scaling to better capture the construct, implications for higher education, and heightened understanding of student satisfaction as a whole.

For many years, government backed reports have continued to deplore the poor performance of the construction industry with many projects failing to exceed or live up to the expectations of clients. There is a common belief that the culture of the construction industry is one of the factors that has an impact on its performance. The culture of the construction industry at the project level is often associated with such attributes as fragmentation, antagonism, mistrust, poor communication, short-term mentality, blame culture, casual approaches to recruitment, machismo and sexism. These attributes are in turn associated with project outcomes like litigation, poor health and safety performance, and inferior quality. Whilst such associations are helpful to the extent that they focus attention on the failings of the industry, and point to aspects that need to be improved, they are arbitrary and often based on no more than anecdotal evidence, and as such do not provide a systematic basis for assessing the real impact of culture on performance. This research was thus undertaken to look for empirical evidence of a relationship between cultural orientations and project performance outcomes. Adopting social cognitive theory and defining culture as the unique configuration of solutions – embodied in attitudes, behaviours and conditions – that a construction project organisation and its members adopt in dealing with problems at the project level, a quantitative research methodology was employed in investigating the culture within the project coalition, also referred to in this thesis as the construction project organisation (CPO). CPOs were profiled to determine their cultural orientations. Several project performance indicators were also assessed and the relationships between these performance measures and the cultural orientations were examined. Analysis revealed five principal dimensions of culture along which project organisations differ. These dimensions are workforce orientation, performance orientation, team orientation, client orientation and project orientation. With the exception of performance and client orientation, the other dimensions of culture were found to be significantly associated with project performance outcomes. These associations were modelled using multiple regression, and from these models it can be inferred inter alia that projects with higher workforce orientation have better participant satisfaction and innovation and learning outcomes. Projects with higher team orientation have better participant satisfaction and health & safety and quality outcomes. Likewise projects with higher project orientation have better health & safety and quality outcomes. Although causality cannot be assumed, these findings support the thesis that culture matters. It is therefore recommended that project participants – and in particular contractors, devote more effort and resources towards improving the orientations of their CPOs in respect of the dimensions of culture identified as having significant association with project performance outcomes, particularly workforce, team and project orientations.

abstract: Although open access publishing has been available since 1998, we know little regarding scholars' perceptions and practices toward publishing in open access outlets, especially in the social science community. Open access publishing has been slow to penetrate the field of education, yet the potential impact of open access could make this publishing method an important innovation for understanding how to support the publishing needs of education scholars. To discover these perceptions and practices that education scholars have toward open access publishing, a 51-item web-based survey was provided to scholars with known investment in open access publishing. Participants had either (1) a publication in one of 34 United States education-based open access journals or (2) a manuscript submitted for peer review in one of those 34 journals. The survey contained subscales focusing on contemporary open access themes--issues identified through a comprehensive analysis of the major outlets for scholarly news in education. Through open and axial coding, several themes were extracted. They included rights and ease of access, ease of publishing, costs, support from colleagues and administrators, and perceived quality of open access outlets. The survey showed moderate to high reliability using Cronbach's alpha. Correlation and MANOVA testing showed significant results in scholars' teaching status and peer review status of manuscripts. Additional findings indicated that non-tenured education scholars responded more strongly than tenured scholars to issues related to rights and ease of access, promotion, and quality. Scholars with manuscripts currently in peer review felt strongly about themes of rights and ease of access, cost, and promotion. The results imply the following: (1) If scholars want their research read by a wider audience, they should publish in open access journals. (2) Pro-open access policies and procedures could gain more support by ensuring open access is promoted to non-tenured scholars seeking to publish. (3) More research, forums, discussions, and education about open access need to occur in greater abundance to continue to ameliorate scholars' views about the benefits of open access publishing. (4) Institutions and departments can offer their unconditional support for open access publishing as a method of meeting promotion/tenure requirements. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Educational Psychology 2012

The aim of diploma thesis is to develop a business plan for starting a new business entity focused on providing fast food in the center of Chotěboř. The first part focuses on theory of founding a enterprise on Czech territory and description of the parts of the business plan. The second part focuses on the application of the business plan into practice and on analyse of its feasibility.

It is widely acknowledged that a team approach is preferred practice and contributes to optimizing the surgical, dental, speech and psychosocial outcomes for individuals with cleft lip and palate (CLP).Young adulthood often marks the transition from child-centered interdisciplinary care to adult-centered care. There is a paucity in literature relating to the transition of care for young adults with CLP. The purpose of this survey research is therefore to explore the CLP team practices regarding young adults with CLP. An exploratory, descriptive design with quantitative analysis was used to explore what services are provided by CLP teams to young adults with CLP. An exploratory design was deemed appropriate due tolimited research available on the provision of team services for young adults with CLP. An online survey was used as the method of data collection to determine the number of teams providing services to this population, the types of services provided, and the perceived needs of young adults receiving CLP team services. 71 participants of (18.4%) responded to the survey. The low response rate is typical of survey research, despite three invitations to participate. However, the topic elicited global responses, from North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Australia, which is indicative of the importance of transition of care for young adults with CLP. 46 Participants responded to the question regarding their perceived needs of young adults with CLP. It appears that the characteristics of young adults with CLP (i.e., appearance, self-acceptance, social attitudes, social experiences, employment, starting a family, hearing and speech) are perceived to occur universally and that concerns about appearance is most frequent, followed by speech were important needs recognized by the teams. 56% of teams that responded to that they discharge young adults between 18-22 years, which confirms the expected results. However, an unexpected finding is that 37% of team’s complete treatment or never discharge patients. 35.5% of the respondents described the services provided, which existed of plastic and reconstructive surgery (98%), oral and maxilla facial surgery (86%), orthodontics (90%) and speech therapy (78%) with 50% indicating that they also provided other services. This confirms the perceptions of the needs of young adults with CLP since the high frequency of surgery and orthodontics address the concerns regarding appearance and speech therapy addresses the frequently perceived concern regarding speech. Continued team care is crucial for young adults with CLP to address their adult needs and improve their QoL.The results from this survey research will increase awareness of the importance of the transition from child to adult team care. Recommendations for further research will be discussed.

Introduction: Alcohol is a major contributor to the burden of disease globally. In Europe, there is a long-standing tradition of drinking alcohol, with per capita consumption being the highest in the world, even if it has been declining in recent decades. Changes in per capita consumption are likely to be related to factors operating at societal level, of which globalisation has been one of the most important factors. Since early 2020, the global pandemic of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused serious disruptions to day-to-day and community life. As a consequence of the pandemic and the measures taken to contain the spread of the virus, patterns and levels of alcohol consumption are expected to change due to reduced alcohol availability, and according to income levels and distress experiences. Surveys are used to assess such short-term trends, but also to identify drinking patterns that cannot be derived from other sources such as alcohol purchases. However, general population surveys usually fail to capture the entire amount of alcohol consumed within a population. This inherently limiting factor of surveys is called underreporting and not well understood to date. Aims and Objectives: The overall aim of this dissertation was to provide a comprehensive and up-to-date assessment of alcohol consumption in Europe using survey data, as well as to compare survey-based annual consumption estimates with per capita consumption data, i.e., sales and other data derived. For this purpose, the following three objectives were of interest: First, to determine and to compare European drinking practices across 19 countries using survey data from 2015 (study I). Second, to examine changes in alcohol consumption during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 21 European countries and whether these changes were associated with income and pandemic-related distress experiences (study II). Third, to estimate the degree of under-reporting of alcohol consumption in surveys and to study possible factors related to under-reporting based on 39 surveys from 23 European countries (study III). Design: All studies are based on individual-level data from cross-sectional pan-European surveys covering the general adult population. In study I, European drinking practices were determined by the means of latent class analysis using key indicators of alcohol consumption (past-year drinking frequency and quantity, risky single-occasion drinking, and preferred alcoholic beverage) derived from nationally representative data from 2015. In a second step, the identified drinking practices were compared across countries. In study II, self-reported changes in drinking frequency, drinking quantity, and the frequency of heavy episodic drinking over the past month were assessed in a large convenience sample collected between April and July 2020. Additionally, past-year alcohol consumption was recorded using the consumption items of the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test in order to obtain an estimate of alcohol consumption during the pre-pandemic period. Income and distress experiences were recorded as factors hypothesised to be associated with self-reported changes in consumption. In Study III, nationally representative surveys conducted between 2008 to 2015 were combined and compared with alcohol per capita consumption estimates for the same years and countries, in order to estimate survey-based under-reporting of alcohol consumption at the national level. Per capita consumption estimates were retrieved from sales statistics and corrected for unrecorded and tourist consumption. Data sources: Survey data were obtained from large-scale alcohol surveys covering the majority of European Union countries plus some non-European Union countries. Statistical analyses: To identify European drinking practices (study I), survey-weighted latent class models of key indicators of alcohol consumption, adjusted for respondent’s location, were conducted. The resulting class prevalence estimates were then contrasted across locations, and fractional response regression models were calculated for membership probabilities of each class (dependent variable) in explorative analysis, with sociodemographic data and individual alcohol harm experiences serving as independent variables. To identify changes in overall alcohol consumption over the past month during the COVID-19 pandemic (study II), a consumption-change score was calculated by combining the single change indicators (i.e., drinking frequency, drinking quantity, and frequency of heavy episodic drinking; range: -1 to +1). Multilevel linear regressions with the random intercept country of residence were used to test for statistical significance of the consumption-change score (dependent variable), adjusting for sample weights and past-year alcohol consumption, as well as for associations with income group and pandemic-related distress experiences. To quantify the extent to which national surveys assess alcohol per capita consumption (study III), coverage rates were calculated. Coverage is defined by dividing the survey-based annual alcohol consumption estimates by per capita consumption estimates. Using fractional response regressions, differences in coverage rates (dependent variable) across transnational regions, as well as the relative importance of heavy episodic drinking prevalence and indicators of survey methodology were tested. Results: Three latent classes of drinking practices were identified: a ‘light to moderate drinking without risky single-occasion drinking’ class (prevalence: 68.0%, 95% Confidence interval [CI]: 66.7, 69.3), a ‘infrequent heavy drinking’ class (prevalence: 12.6%, 95% CI: 11.5, 13.7), and a ‘regular drinking with at least monthly risk single-occasion drinking’ class (prevalence: 19.4%, 95% CI: 18.1, 20.9). In contrast to the former drinking practice of light to moderate drinking, the latter two were characterised by a high average amount of alcohol consumed per drink day, exceeding 100 grams pure alcohol and 60 grams pure alcohol per drink day, respectively. Regional variations in the distribution of drinking practices were observed, with the ‘light to moderate drinking without risky single-occasion drinking’ class prevailing particularly in southern European countries. In study II, an average decrease in overall alcohol consumption during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic indicated by a negative consumption-change score was observed (-0.14, 95% CI: -0.18, -0.10). This average decline according to the consumption-change indicator was observed in all countries studied, except Ireland (no change) and the United Kingdom (increase). The most marked decrease was reported in the frequency of heavy episodic drinking (-0.17, 95% CI: -0.20, -0.14). Respondents with low- or average income, as well as those experiencing distress were more likely to increase their alcohol consumption than to decrease it. In study III, the average total alcohol consumption coverage was 36.5% (95% CI: 33.2, 39.8), with large variations in coverage rates between countries. While the prevalence of heavy episodic drinking explained up to 10% of the variance in coverage, there were no systematic variations across European regions or the survey methodologies studied, such as non-response rates. Conclusions: In many European countries, a combination of a light to moderate and risky drinking practices prevailed. With a combined prevalence of 32.0%, almost every third respondent engaged in some form of risky drinking. During the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, overall alcohol consumption, and particularly heavy episodic drinking, appeared to have declined on average in the countries studied. On the other hand, people with low- or average incomes and those suffering from pandemic-related distress were at increased risk of escalating their alcohol consumption during this period. The results contribute both to an up-to-date assessment of alcohol consumption in Europe, including the identification of populations at increased risk of alcohol-related harm, and to the body of evidence on reducing alcohol availability as an effective measure to lower population-level consumption. Beyond consequences for alcohol policy, benefits and limitations of surveys in the field of alcohol epidemiology are discussed. In light of the substantial and apparently unsystematic under-reporting of alcohol consumption in surveys, a rethinking of this methodology is required. Presenting survey-based data and its limitations in an upfront manner, as well as applying sophisticated statistical methods are two options to address current challenges.:Statement for a publication-based dissertation I Table of contents III List of tables V List of figures VII Abbreviations IX Synopsis XI 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Determinants of alcohol consumption and alcohol-related harm 3 1.1.1 Individual vulnerability factors 4 1.1.2 Societal vulnerability factors 5 1.2 The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on alcohol consumption 8 1.3 Strengths and limitations of survey research 11 2 Aims and objectives 13 3 Study design and methodology 14 3.1 The Standardised European Alcohol Survey 15 3.1.1 The RARHA SEAS questionnaire 15 3.1.2 Sampling procedure and data pre-processing 16 3.1.3 Calculation of annual alcohol consumption 17 3.1.4 Research ethics 17 3.2 Harmonising Alcohol-related Measures in European Surveys 17 3.2.1 Questionnaires 18 3.2.2 Sampling procedures and harmonising of the questionnaires 18 3.2.3 Research ethics 19 3.3 The Alcohol Use and COVID-19 Survey 19 3.3.1 Survey development and design 19 3.3.2 Survey dissemination 21 3.3.3 Calculation of survey and population weights 22 3.3.4 Research ethics 24 4 Study I – A new perspective on the European drinking culture: a model-based approach to determine variations in drinking practices across 19 European countries 25 4.1 Abstract 25 4.2 Introduction 26 4.3 Methods 27 4.4 Results 30 4.5 Discussion 35 5 Study II – Alcohol consumption during the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe: a large-scale cross-sectional study in 21 countries 38 5.1 Abstract 38 5.2 Introduction 39 5.3 Methods 40 5.4 Results 42 5.5 Discussion 49 6 Study III – Why is per capita consumption underestimated in alcohol surveys? Results from 39 surveys in 23 European countries 53 6.1 Abstract 53 6.2 Introduction 54 6.3 Methods 56 6.4 Results 62 6.5 Discussion 64 7 General discussion 69 7.1 Summary of findings 69 7.2 Strengths and limitations 70 7.3 Implications for future research 72 7.3.1 New impulses for drinking culture research 72 7.3.2 The realisation of multi-country online surveys 73 7.3.3 Consequences of low alcohol consumption coverage in alcohol surveys 74 7.4 Implications for alcohol policy 75 7.4.1 Altered availability of alcohol as a secondary outcome of the COVID-19 pandemic 76 7.4.2 Towards a comprehensive alcohol control policy for Europe 78 7.4.3 Alcohol screening and access to health care in high-risk drinking populations 7.5 Outlook 81 7.6 Conclusion 83 8 References 85 9 Appendix 106 9.1 Appendix A (study I) 106 9.2 Appendix B (study II) 126 9.3 Appendix C (study III) 152 10 Erklärung gemäß §5 der Promotionsordnung 160

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