Ubiquitous trends in public service provision, such as digitalization and co-production, put increasing demands and expectations on public service users (Jakobsen & Andersen 2013; Larsson 2021). Meanwhile, the emerging body of literature on administrative burden has highlighted how related costs of administrative processes have substantial, yet nonuniform impact on people’s lives (Chudnovsky & Peeters 2020; Heinrich 2016; Herd & Moynihan 2018). While research has traditionally used proxies to account for varying abilities to cope with administrative burden, such as general education or minority background, such measures fail to account for heterogeneity within these groups. The concept of administrative literacy aims at conceptualizing the core nature of the underlying phenomenon: people’s knowledge and skills to “obtain, process, and understand basic information and services from public organizations needed to make appropriate decisions” (Döring 2021, 1). While first studies have provided evidence for the impact and nature of this concepts (Döring & Madsen 2022, Döring & Jilke 2022), we lack a validated and thus universally applicable measurement approach. Such a tool will allow for a consistent and reliable research stream.
This pilot study aims at developing a survey inventory to measure administrative literacy. The objective is a measure which is modular, domain unspecific, and contains both cognitive as well as social components making it applicable in various policy and research contexts. The validation will be based on best practices from psychometry (DeVellis & Thorpe 2022).
Chudnovsky, M., & Peeters, R. (2020). The unequal distribution of administrative burden: A framework and an illustrative case study for understanding variation in people’s experience of burdens. Social Policy & Administration.
DeVellis, R. F., & Thorpe, C. T. (2022). Scale development: Theory and applications (Fifth edition). SAGE Publications, Inc.
Döring, M. (2021). How-to Bureaucracy: A Concept of Citizens’ Administrative Literacy. Administration & Society, 53(8), 1155–1177.
Döring, M., & Jilke, S. (2022). Cream‐skimming at the frontline: The role of administrative literacy. Public Administration.
Döring, M., & Madsen, J. K. (2022). Mitigating Psychological Costs—The Role of Citizens’ Administrative Literacy and Social Capital. Public Administration Review, 82(4), 671–681.
Heinrich, C. J. (2016). The Bite of Administrative Burden: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation. In Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory (Vol. 26, Issue 3, pp. 403–420).
Herd, P., & Moynihan, D. P. (2018). Administrative Burden: Policymaking by Other Means. Russell Sage Foundation.
Jakobsen, M., & Andersen, S. C. (2013). Coproduction and Equity in Public Service Delivery. Public Administration Review, 73(5), 704–713.
Larsson, K. K. (2021). Digitization or equality: When government automation covers some, but not all citizens. Government Information Quarterly, 38(1), 101547.
