to Pretest Database Pretest Database
Project Title:PIAAC-Longitudinal (PIAAC-L) 2016 - Acquisition of Competencies (English Version)
  2. General Information: *Note: This item was tested in German. This is an English translation of the original German wording. The translation does not correspond exactly to the wording in the English PIAAC source questionnaire.*

    Questions 13-15 were only asked to those persons who stated in question 12 that they had been employed in the previous week.
  3. Question Text: How many hours have you worked in the last week?
    [Wie viele Stunden haben Sie in der letzten Woche gearbeitet?]
  5. Answer Categories Open answer [offene Antwort]
    1. Recommendations: Question: It is unclear which working time specification the question is aimed at. It would have to be specified whether it is a matter of contractual or actual working hours. We recommend that the question be reworded:
      How many hours have you actually worked in the last week, regardless of your contractually agreed working hours? [Wie viele Stunden haben Sie in der letzten Woche tatsächlich gearbeitet, ungeachtet Ihrer ggfs. vertraglich vereinbarten Arbeitszeit?]
      If the recommendations for the differentiated recording of the reasons why the interviewees did not work during the previous week are not adopted (question 12), this question requires an instruction as to what persons who were absent during the previous week due to holidays or illness etc. should state.
  2. Cognitive Techniques:Information image/link to cognitive pretesting Emergent probing
  3. Findings for Question: As mentioned above, 14 out of 18 test persons are employed. Accordingly, only 14 test persons (TP 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16) were asked how many hours they had worked in the week before the pretest. Nine of them (TP 01, 02, 04, 07, 08, 09, 13, 15, 16) actually worked and were therefore able to provide direct information on the question. Four respondents (TP 03, 05, 06, 11) were on holiday and could therefore only make an estimate based on previous weeks. TP 14 also had to give an estimate because she was ill. From the spontaneous comments of the test persons, various problems regarding the answering of the question become apparent. For one thing, it is not clear to the test persons whether the contractually agreed working time is asked or the actual number of hours worked: "Formal or actual? If it is not further specified, I would state the formal working time simply because I do not have to think about it. The formal working time would be 40, the actual working time would be higher, more than 50 hours. But in response, I would give the formal working time here, just when I am short. With the actual one I would have to think longer" (TP 07). In addition, another problem can be taken from the statement, which is also reflected in the statements of other test persons. Some test persons find it difficult to remember the exact working hours. Therefore, it can be assumed that they too - as TP 07 already mentioned - tend to give formal information, unless the wording explicitly asks for the actual hours.
    • "Normally 39.5 hours, but due to the order situation we often work on weekends." (TP 02)
    • "I'm not sure. I reduced. I’ll say 35. That’s the regular number of hours. I've reduced it to 80%." (TP 08)
    • "It varies every week, 75% I work there. That's why the average is 30 hours a week. Correspondingly. So, it's distributed according to the week. Sometimes there's a weekend shift, sometimes not, and accordingly it's sometimes 34, sometimes 26 hours. Depending on that." (TP 15)
  2. Question Topic: Job and career/ Job situation & professional activity
  3. Construct: Worktime in a week