Methodology
How Iran Ideoscope Works
Iran Ideoscope is built on a seven-metric model of political orientation designed to better reflect major cleavages in the Iranian political sphere. Rather than reducing political views to a single left-right axis, it maps answers across several distinct dimensions.
1. Metric Model
Each metric represents a distinct axis of political thought. The current public model uses seven metrics: Political Pluralism, Secularism, Cultural Liberalism, Economic Redistribution, Market Liberalization, International Engagement, and Decentralization. Each metric is scored on a continuous 0-10 scale.
2. Question Design
Each public item is written to target one metric and one main claim at a time. The current bank uses five active items per metric and avoids combining multiple policy claims in a single prompt wherever possible. Users respond on a 5-point Likert scale from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree.
3. Scoring Algorithm
Scoring is performed entirely client-side. For each metric, the average of the user's Likert responses is computed using the item weights in the active question bank and normalized to a 0-10 scale:
metric_score = (sum(answer_normalized * weight) / sum(weight))Where answer_normalized converts a Likert value (1-5) to the 0-10 scale using the formula: ((value - 1) / 4) * 10. In the current public release, all active items use equal weights, so each metric score reduces to a simple average on the 0-10 scale.
4. Profile Vector
The final result is represented as a seven-number profile vector, with one score for each metric:
profile = [political_pluralism, secularism, cultural_liberalism, economic_redistribution, market_liberalization, international_engagement, decentralization]This vector powers the radar chart and the shareable link. It summarizes the shape of a user's profile without sending individual answers to any server.
5. Validation Workflow
The public bank should be treated as a pilot instrument. Items are intended to be reviewed by subject-matter experts, tested in cognitive interviews, piloted with respondents, and revised using item-level evidence such as nonresponse, item-total relationships, dimensionality, monotonicity, and reliability.
6. Data Status
The current public metric definitions and question bank are a revised bilingual pilot bank. They are no longer just illustrative prompts, but they still should not be treated as a finalized scientific instrument until they have gone through formal expert review and pilot validation.
7. Privacy Architecture
The public layer of Iran Ideoscope operates without any server-side data processing. Test questions and metric definitions are loaded from static JSON files. All scoring computations happen in the browser. No answers, results, or personal data are sent to any server, stored in cookies, or logged in any form.