The World Values Survey (WVS) is an international research program devoted to the scientific and academic study of social, political, economic, religious and cultural values of people in the world. The project’s goal is to assess which impact values stability or change over time has on the social, political and economic development of countries and societies. The project grew out of the European Values Study and was started in 1981 by its Founder and first President (1981-2013) Professor Ronald Inglehart from the University of Michigan (USA) and his team, and since then has been operating in more than 120 world societies. The main research instrument of the project is a representative comparative social survey which is conducted globally every 5 years. Extensive geographical and thematic scope, free availability of survey data and project findings for broad public turned the WVS into one of the most authoritative and widely-used cross-national surveys in the social sciences. At the moment, WVS is the largest non-commercial cross-national empirical time-series investigation of human beliefs and values ever executed.

Interview

Mode of collection: mixed mode Face-to-face interview: CAPI (Computer Assisted Personal Interview) Face-to-face interview: PAPI (Paper and Pencil Interview) Telephone interview: CATI (Computer Assisted Telephone Interview) Self-administered questionnaire: CAWI (Computer-Assisted Web Interview) Self-administered questionnaire: Paper Web-based Interview In all countries, fieldwork was conducted on the basis of detailed and uniform instructions prepared by the WVS Scientific Committee and WVSA secretariat. The main data collection mode in 1981-2012 was face to face (interviewer-administered) interview with the printed questionnaire. Postal surveys (respondent-administered) have been used in Canada, New Zealanda, Japan, Australia. CAPI and online data collection modes have been introduced first in WVS-6 in 2012-2014. The main data collection mode in WVS 2017-2022 is face to face (interviewer-administered) interview with a printed or electronic questionnaire (CAPI). Several countries employed mixed-mode approach to data collection: USA (CAWI; CATI); Australia and Japan (CAWI; postal survey); Hong Kong SAR (PAPI; CAWI); Malaysia (CAWI; PAPI). The WVS Master Questionnaire is always provided in English and each national survey team has to ensure that the questionnaire was translated into all the languages spoken by 15% or more of the population in the country. WVSA Secretariat monitors the translation process.

The target population is defined as: individuals aged 18 (16/17 is acceptable in the countries with such voting age) or older (with no upper age limit), regardless of their nationality, citizenship or language, that have been residing in the [country] within private households for the past 6 months prior to the date of beginning of fieldwork (or in the date of the first visit to the household, in case of random-route selection).

The sampling procedures differ from country to country; probability Sample: Multistage Sample Probability Sample, Simple Random Sample Representative single stage or multi-stage sampling of the adult population of the country 18 (16) years old and older was used for the WVS 1981-2022. In 1981-2012, the required sample size for each coutnry was N=1000 or above. In 2017-2022, the sample size was set as effective sample size: 1200 for countries with population over 2 million, 1000 for countries with population less than 2 million. As an exception, few surveys with smaller sample sizes have been accepted into the WVS 1981-2020 through the WVSA's history. Sample design and other relevant information about sampling are reviewed by the WVS Scientific Advisory Committee and approved prior to contracting of fieldwork agency or starting of data collection. The sampling is documented using the Survey Design Form delivered by the national teams which included the description of the sampling frame and each sampling stage as well as the calculation of the planned gross and net sample size to achieve the required effective sample. Additionally, it included the analytical description of the inclusion probabilities of the sampling design that are used to calculate design weights.