Using semantic differentials in fieldwork.
BACKGROUND
A large project was undertaken to examine attitudes and opinions of health staff and parents about the care of hospitalized children in four countries. A simple scoring system, which allowed comparisons between results from each country, was needed to examine concepts under investigation.


OBJECTIVE
This paper describes how, after trialling a range of methods, semantic differentials (SD) were found to be easy for the subjects to use. They translated well into other languages and provided scores which were easy to analyse and compare.


RESULTS
Semantic differentials are based on a series of line scores using adjectives and their antonyms for a set of characteristics. They are a particularly useful method for fieldwork analysis, as they can be done by hand with no computer support.


CONCLUSIONS
Semantic differentials were found to be useful for cross-cultural, quantitative studies of this kind. I discuss SDs, how they work, their trialling, reliability and validity and their usefulness in cross-cultural research.
Shields
Linda
L
Faculty of Health and Social Care, University of Hull, England, UK. l.shields@hull.ac.uk
D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel / Q000208:ethnology; D002648:Child; D002673:Child, Hospitalized; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D006801:Humans; D010290:Parents; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012659:Semantic Differential