Ecological validity through mixed-methods-designs Qualitative interviews as a complement to standardized measures of prejudice

Due to their focus on variable-oriented comparisons and large-N samples, survey methods are prone to lack information on the context-specific, practical meaning of measured constructs. This issue is explicated via the concept of "ecological validity". A sequential quantitative-qualitative mixed-methods-study on anti-American prejudice in Germany is presented to demonstrate how semi-structured qualitative interviews (n = 22) can compensate for lacking ecological validity in standardized prejudice measurements (CATI-survey, n = 808, summer 2011). Qualitative analyses provide context-sensitive insight into the rhetorical functions of anti-American speech. They are used to generate explanatory hypotheses for correlations between anti-American, anti-Semitic, and racist prejudice in the survey data. This complementarity of research methods is closely connected to an enhanced theoretical perspective: The combination of attitude-based and speech-act-theoretical concepts of prejudice helps to increase construct validity in the example study.