A second challenge is the possibility of cultural variations in response patterns to questions. This issue has been recognised for some time in the study of adults’ subjective well-being14. There is evidence that respondents in different countries tend to be more or less likely to select specific response points on the scale – particularly the end and mid-points. There has been relatively little exploration of this issue in relation to children, although it has been recognised in recent literature15 and an analysis of the pilot survey16 suggested that it may also be relevant in the case of children’s reports of their subjective well-being.
So to tackle the issue within an international comparative context, we have also used an alternative approach which takes into account both the response patterns within a specific country and the overall tendency for an aspect of life to rank high or low across all countries. We have calculated what we have termed a ‘relative score’ for each country for questions using a satisfaction, agreement or frequency format. For example, there were 32 questions using an 11-point satisfaction format (from zero to ten) in the questionnaires. In these cases we have used the formula shown in Figure 1 to calculate a relative score.