Survey instrument verification

Skill fabioc-aloha/Alex_Skill_Mall/plugins/academic-research/survey-instrument-verification

284 curated plugins for AI assistants across 16 categories: security, Azure, documentation, code quality, cloud infrastructure, and more. Works with GitHub Copilot. Drop into .github/skills/local/ and go.

Install

npx -y skills add fabioc-aloha/Alex_Skill_Mall --skill survey-instrument-verification

Assembled from the repository path, not quoted from the project. Check it against their README if it does not work.

One thing to look at

3 stars3 stars. Stars are a popularity signal and not a quality one, but at this level it is likely that nobody has read this closely except its author, and you would be relying on your own review.

What its author says it does

Copied from the file, not written here

Manuscripts evolve terminology that may not match what was actually administered:

SKILL.md

2.2 KB, as published. Nobody here has run it

Survey Instrument Verification

The Problem

Manuscripts evolve terminology that may not match what was actually administered:

Manuscript says: "We measured perceived safety using a 5-point scale"
Raw data shows: 7-point scale with different anchors

Manuscript says: "Participants rated their agreement with 12 items"
Raw data shows: 14 items (2 were dropped but not documented)

The Solution

Before editing survey-related content, verify against raw data.

1. Check Scale Parameters

Manuscript Claims	Verify In Data
Number of points	Actual min/max values
Anchor labels	Codebook or data dictionary
Number of items	Count of columns/variables
Response options	Unique values in data

2. Verify Item Wording

Manuscript Appendix: "How safe do you feel walking at night?"
Actual survey item: "How safe do you feel walking alone at night?"
                                         ^^^^^
                                    Missing word!

Compare exact wording:

Survey instrument file (if available)
Qualtrics/SurveyMonkey export
IRB-approved protocol

3. Check for "Exactly As Administered" Claims

If an appendix claims "items shown exactly as administered":

# Line-by-line comparison
diff manuscript-appendix.txt original-survey.txt

This claim is a testable hypothesis — test it.

Verification Checklist

Scale points match (5-point? 7-point? Likert?)
Anchor labels match ("Strongly agree" vs "Completely agree")
Item count matches (after exclusions?)
Item wording is verbatim (if claimed)
Response coding matches (1-5 vs 0-4)

When to Apply

Editing methods sections describing surveys
Reviewing appendices with survey items
Any manuscript with quantitative survey data