Using semantic differentials in fieldwork

Rationale 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. Aims and objectives 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