What's your threshold? How international students use vague quantifiers of behavioral frequency in student surveys

Abstract

Many student surveys on the undergraduate experience ask respondents to quantify various aspects of their collegiate experiences. Studies of the survey response process have shown that enumeration is cognitively challenging and subject to various forms of error. As an alternative to enumeration, many surveys use vague quantifiers (VQs) such as "very often," "often," "sometimes," "rarely," or "never." Previous research findings generally support the use of VQs from a concurrent validity standpoint. One important area that has gone unexplored involves international students- how they interpret and use VQs and whether these interpretations and uses differ from those of domestic students. A related concern involves heterogeneity within the international student population. To the extent that the use of VQs differs between international and domestic students, or differs among international student populations, users of student survey data should be aware of these differences and their implications for the validity and interpretation of results. Informed by these concerns, we ask the following research questions: 1. To what extent do domestic and international students interpret VQs differently? 2. Among international students, to what extent do students from Western and non-Western countries interpret VQs differently?