An Introduction to Survey Research

The purpose of this chapter is to provide an easy-to-understand overview of several important concepts for selecting and creating survey instruments for dissertations and other types of doctoral research. This chapter includes information on instrument selection, survey validation, and survey instrument creation. A review of survey scale types and important definitions and concepts related to survey research is included. A sample conceptual framework that can be used to link research questions, relevant literature, and survey questions is also provided.

The Rule of Law

The history of the rule of law in the EU Treaty framework has been one of gradual but extensive process of entrenchment and formal enshrinement. When comparing the evolution of the Treaty framework to the evolution of the EU’s rule of law toolbox, it is difficult not to be struck by the contrast between the gradual evolution of the former with the rapid development of the latter. This swift development of the EU’s rule of law toolbox may be understood both in a positive and negative way: it may be positively understood as the sign of a broad consensus regarding the critical importance to uphold the rule of law. Conversely, this evolution may be understood as a failure to fully confront the ‘rule of law backsliding’ threat by instead focusing in a quasi-permanent new instrument creation cycle at the EU level.

8. World music matters

‘World music matters’ looks at the sites of music and musical instrument creation under threat from climate change. The word ‘matter’ refers not only to the significance but the materiality of world music and sound itself. As diasporas expand, the routes and borders they once travelled are closing. From the Calais Jungle to Babylon Orchestra, world musicians collaborate with each other and create new fusions. In the 21st century, world music is more diverse than ever, and we must find new ways to sustain and engage with world music that put the musician and the ethnographer on an equal footing.

Construction of Competitive Advantage Instrument in Jordanian SME Context Using Structural Equation Modelling

Jordanian SMEs are becoming increasingly hard to endure and thrive in the aggressive entrepreneurial world economy due to weak capital structure, poor leadership and weak marketing strategy, as well as other legislative limitations. As a consequence, Jordan faces problems in achieving full advantage from the SME industry as well, making an inadequate contribution to the domestic GDP. Competitive advantage (CA) can, however, perform a crucial part in achieving fast economic development due to sustainability of SMEs and a coherent appropriate input to Jordan's GDP. But the construction of CA is still underdeveloped and ignores a unifying hypothesis, resulting in fragmented study attempts. In addition, there are now several frameworks for the evaluation and benchmarking of firm performance (FP), but none of these frameworks provide an approach for assessing the competitive advantage of the firm. Therefore, this study aims to explore and determine the dimensionality of items measuring CA construct. The issue has previously been discussed, but there is still no prevalent agreement between scholars as the number of dimensions and items to assess CA should be used. This research investigated the CA measurement items created by past researchers and tailored these items to accommodate the environment of SMEs in Jordan. In this regard, the Delphi technique has been combined by the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and also followed the steps of instrument creation developed by Churchill (1979). The primary objective of this research is to develop an instrument capable of assessing CA in Jordanian SME sector. The tool developed in this research provides a relevant and efficient tool that disclosed three aspects by satisfying all the socio-metric properties required by the measuring tool in the social science, namely dimensionality, reliability, and validity.

Digital Currencies Trading under Polish and EU Public Law

Digital currencies are a worldwide phenomenon gaining an increasing interest among investors, economists and legal scholars. They are used mainly as a new mean of ex-change and as a new way of investing funds, since the rapid changes in their value allow to gain extraordinary profits. Up to this point the legal status of digital currencies has not been clearly established under neither Polish nor EU public law, although some of the existing regulations may be indirectly applied to them. Under current regulations digital currencies cannot be treated as a legal mean of payment, as an electronic money nor a financial instrument. Creation of a complex regulation regarding digital currencies and granting administrative authorities supervisory powers over their trade seems to be necessary. Because of the evolution of financial markets, classifying digital currencies as financial instruments is a possible way of regulating their trade.

Using Rasch Analysis to Create and Evaluate a Measurement Instrument for Foreign Language Classroom Speaking Anxiety

Despite the existence of skill-specific anxiety instruments measuring reading anxiety, writing anxiety, and listening anxiety, there is still no single measurement instrument specifically designed to measure levels of speaking anxiety. This research had two purposes. The first was to provide for classroom-based foreign language teachers and researchers an example of the advantages of Rasch model analysis, the use of which is increasing in first-language educational contexts for measurement instrument creation and validation. The second purpose was to create and evaluate an instrument for measuring foreign language speaking anxiety within the classroom in an EFL learning context, in which few native speakers of the language are available for interaction. Using data from a sample of Japanese university students (N = 172), the Rasch model identified misfitting items and examined the construct validity of a 20-item questionnaire to measure levels of Foreign Language Classroom Speaking Anxiety (FLCSA). リーディング、ライティング、リスニングといった特定のスキルに関する不安を測定する手段はあるが、スピーキング不安のレベルを測定する手段は現在のところ存在しない。本研究の目的は二つある。一つ目は、教室で教える外国語教師や研究者にラッシュモデル分析の利点の例を示すことである。ラッシュモデルによる分析は、第一言語の教育環境において、測定手段の作成やその妥当性を高める目的でますます使用されるようになっている。本研究の二つ目の目的は、母語話者とのやりとりの機会がほとんどない「外国語としての英語」を学ぶ教室において、外国語スピーキング不安を測る手段を作成し、評価することである。日本の大学生（N=172）のデータを使用し、外国語スピーキング不安（FLCSA）の度合いを測定する20項目からなる質問紙からラッシュモデルにより不適当な項目を割り出し、構成概念妥当性を検証した。