MacArthur Jess, Budhathoki Ratan, Prasad Basnet Min, Yadav Ambika, Dhakal Sabitra, Willetts Juliet
Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
SNV Nepal, Kathmandu, Nepal.
PLoS One. 2025 Jul 2;20(7):e0326957. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0326957. eCollection 2025.
Structured interviews remain a key approach to collect information from community members, particularly in development contexts. Such enumerated surveys often focus on potentially distressing topics including gender equality, social inclusion, wellbeing, and even socio-demographics. Researchers have an obligation to consider the ethics of survey processes and mitigate potential distress for participants. However, approaches to quantify and evaluate participant distress remain nascent outside of clinical practice. To support ethical considerations in quantitative survey deployment, we introduce a four-item formative measure to analyze interview ease, stress, privacy, and comprehension. We present the measure's conceptual and empirical development and examine the validity of the measure through data from Cambodia and Nepal (n = 4,674) using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) for formative measurement model assessment. The measure is shown to have content and face validity, anticipated divergence with two reflective constructs, low collinearity, structural validity, and construct validity through known groups testing. As ethical considerations are increasingly recognized as important in research in both development and other research and evaluation contexts, tools to diagnose and analyze distress can support in mitigating negative impacts.
结构化访谈仍然是从社区成员那里收集信息的关键方法，特别是在发展背景下。此类枚举式调查通常聚焦于包括性别平等、社会包容、福祉乃至社会人口统计学等潜在令人苦恼的话题。研究人员有义务考虑调查过程的伦理问题，并减轻参与者可能遭受的困扰。然而，在临床实践之外，量化和评估参与者困扰的方法仍处于初期阶段。为了支持定量调查部署中的伦理考量，我们引入了一项包含四个条目的形成性测量工具，以分析访谈的轻松程度、压力、隐私和理解情况。我们展示了该测量工具的概念和实证发展，并通过来自柬埔寨和尼泊尔的数据（n = 4674），使用偏最小二乘结构方程模型（PLS-SEM）进行形成性测量模型评估，来检验该测量工具的有效性。通过已知群组检验，该测量工具显示出具有内容效度和表面效度、与两个反映性构念的预期差异、低共线性、结构效度和建构效度。由于伦理考量在发展研究以及其他研究与评估背景中日益被视为重要因素，用于诊断和分析困扰的工具能够有助于减轻负面影响。
