README.md

In fsolt/DCPOtools: Tools for Dynamic Comparative Public Opinion

DCPOtools

DCPOtools includes functions to help preparing panel data for Dynamic Comparative Publicion Opinion (DCPO) analyses.

The study of comparative public opinion has been hampered by data that is sparse, that is, unavailable for many countries and years; incomparable, i.e., ostensibly addressing the same issue but generated by different survey items; or, most often, both. A latent variable model, such as that implemented in the R package DCPO, can address this issue by estimating latent public opinion from cross-national survey data to maximize the information gleaned from available sources, overcome issues of missing and incomparable data, and allow comparativists to examine the dynamics of public opinion across countries. However, the data management issues involved are formidable. This is where the DCPOtools package can provide help.

Installation

DCPOtools requires the package gesisdata to be successfully installed. Before gesisdata is released in CRAN, users should first install it before installing DCPOtools with the follow commands:

remotes::install_github("fsolt/gesisdata")

Then, the DCPOtools can be installed with the following commands:

remotes::install_github("fsolt/DCPOtools")

Please be aware that DCPOtools is only for data preparation. To use the DCPO model to generate estimates of public opinion across countries and over time, one should install the DCPO package separately. See the instruction of the DCPO package here.

fsolt/DCPOtools documentation built on June 9, 2025, 4:10 p.m.