Social support of students of social informatics FDV (2001-2002)

The updated MTMM measurement model, designed by Saris and Andrews (1991), was used to assess the measurement quality of the four dimensions of the social support because it allows us to assess the validity, reliability and impact of the method for each variable separately. Based on theoretical and empirical findings, four network generators were designed to measure theoretically justified dimensions of social support. The content of network generators for measuring material, information and emotional support and socializing was adapted to the characteristics of experimental groups - students of the fourth year of social informatics at the Faculty of Social Sciences in Ljubljana. A complex experimental plan was designed to find the factors that influence the quality of social support measurement through a survey questionnaire. The experimental design contains the characteristics of the measurement instrument, which can influence the estimates of the reliability, validity and impact of the methods, which have already been recognized as important by the researchers of the quality of the data obtained from the survey. The experimental design included two different measurement scales (binary and eleven-step ordinal scales), two data collection techniques (list recognition and memory enumeration), acceptance of social support (basic questions - acceptance), with a limit on the number of choices (three choices) and without limitation, and time between consecutive repetitions of four-fold measurements (the first two measurements only material support, the other two material, informational and emotional support, and socializing) measurements (one week).