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- Newsgroups: bit.listserv.stat-l
- Path: sparky!uunet!utcsri!torn!nott!cunews!sjones
- From: sjones@alfred.carleton.ca (Stan Jones)
- Subject: Re: guttmann scales
- Message-ID: <sjones.721147995@cunews>
- Sender: news@cunews.carleton.ca (News Administrator)
- Organization: Carleton University
- References: <STAT-L%92110617193393@VM1.MCGILL.CA> <1992Nov7.070942.28258@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
- Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1992 14:53:15 GMT
- Lines: 29
-
- >In <STAT-L%92110617193393@VM1.MCGILL.CA> ZUMBO@ACADVM1.UOTTAWA.CA (Bruno D. Zumbo) writes:
-
- > We have developed a clinical questionnaire for head injured
- >patients on their social and adaptive functioning. The
- >questionnaire consists of 6 or 7 major scales, each represented by
- >8 to 12 questions. Each scale, e.g. "taking intiative" or "being
- >organized", is Guttman scaled more or less so that there is some
- >sort of threshold for problem behaviour depending on how impaired
- >the patient is. But instead of YES/NO responses, we supply a
- >Likert scale. We then adjust the polarity appropriately and simply
- >add up the scores on the 1 to 5 ratings. We have found the results
- >useful and have externally validity in appropriate places. Now, I
- >have an honours student doing a project on checking some
- >psychometric features (something new for me), such as doing a
- >proper item analysis, seeing whether the Guttman scaling is as we
- >hoped, factor analysis, etc. The reason I am writing is that I
- >have not been able to find any relevant discussant in psychometry
- >books on such a type of test with Likert ratings on Guttman scales.
- >Do you know of any? and is there anything I should be aware of?
-
- Your student would be best off exploring the Item Response Theory
- literature. The techniques there have largely superseded (because
- they build on) Guttman's work. Wright and Masters _Rating Scale
- Analysis: Rasch Techniques_ , MESA Press is the only work that
- directly address the question (but it does directly address it) your
- student is struggling with. However, it advocates what I (and others,
- I think) regard as the least powerful of the IRT models.
-