Addressing issues of missing values in the survey research of high school mathematics teachers' digital competencies

Abstract

This paper reports how I addressed the issue of extensive missing values in my PhD study, "Digital Competencies of High School Mathematics Teachers". I collected data using an online survey. Several methods exist to address the issue of missing values. I utilised multiple imputation (MI) as it provides more accurate results. The mean scores and scale reliability of survey items changed after imputation. While addressing the missing values, I observed my focus was completely shifted from the analysis of the survey to developing an approach to imputing missing values. Researchers should be ready for complex and challenging situations. Once encountered, they should use that challenging situation to instigate creative tension – a force that moves us closer to our goals – to motivate themselves and to learn new things. I used creative tension to move from the issue of missing values back towards my initial research goal (preserving sample size and a complete dataset for analysis).