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This study investigates the impact of different modes and tailor-made response enhancing measures (TMREM)—such as bilingual interviewers with a shared ethnic background and translated questionnaires—on the measurement of substantive variables in surveys among minority ethnic groups in the Netherlands. It also provides insight into the ability to detect mode measurement effects of a recently developed method for disentangling mode measurement and mode selection effects, as well as into the tenability of the assumptions underlying this method. The data used in this study come from a large-scale survey design experiment among the four largest non-Western minority ethnic groups in the Netherlands comparing single-mode computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) and sequential computer-assisted web interviewing, computer-assisted telephone interviewing, and CAPI-MM. The number and intensity of the TMREM varied among the four ethnic groups. The results show that mode measurement effects occur among all ethnic groups and are the result of a combination of the presence or absence of an interviewer and TMREM. Mode measurement effects occur more often on sociocultural questions, but also, on occasion, on more sociostructural or background questions. The method used to disentangle mode measurement and mode selection effects can be applied to detect mode measurement effects, but one should be cautious in interpreting them. Implausible mode measurement effects can be caused by the violation of the assumptions underlying this method.

The L&W Elrepho d/0 and the Spectrolino 45/0 instruments are examined using paper samples with different properties. External factors that influence the measurements - such as the sample background, the instrument calibration and the sample inhomogeneity - are studied, and a methodology for their minimization is presented. Experimental measurements show that such external factors, if not minimized by proper routines, affect the inter-instrument differences far more (up to 4-5 ΔE*ab) than the instrument geometry (the effect of which is small and of order 0.1 ΔE*ab). The DORT2002 radiative transfer model is used to simulate differences caused by instrument geometry. The simulated and measured differences are found to agree in magnitude, and the differences are mapped against sample properties. It is observed that the 45/0 instrument detects higher reflectance from paper samples with negligible absorption and transmittance. When there is considerable absorption (dyed samples) or transmittance (thin samples), the d/0 instrument detects higher reflectance. The physical mechanism behind this behavior is studied and explained using DORT2002, and the instrument differences are shown to depend on the anisotropy of the reflected light. The model/measurement agreement is satisfactory as the characteristic behavior is captured in almost all cases studied. This new understanding is important for facilitating accurate data exchange between the paper and graphic arts industries, but also for interpretation of reflectance measurements in general.

The hypothesis that socio-economic inequality has a detrimental effect on economic growth by breeding political instability has been subject to empirical investigation for decades. However, the numerous studies in the field have yielded highly different conclusions, and still no agreement has been reached as to what the relationship between these variables really looks like. This study investigates why empirical studies have given such diverging results. By using several different measures both of socio-economic inequality, political instability and economic development it examines whether differences in methods and measurement can explain the variation in previous findings. It is revealed that the effect of socio-economic inequality upon political instability is dependent on which measures are used, and that the effect of instability upon economic development varies between different analytical models. The study thus shows that conclusions about the relationship between these phenomena are not robust to alternative measurement. A possible explanation of why previous empirical studies have reported such diverging findings is therefore that socio-economic inequality and political instability have been measured in different ways, or that different analytical models have been used.