Ordinal Measurement in the Behavioral Sciences

This book provides an alternative method for measuring individual differences in psychological, educational, and other behavioral sciences studies. It is based on the assumptions of ordinal statistics as explained in Norman Cliff's 1996 Ordinal Methods for Behavioral Data Analysis.It provides the necessary background on ordinal measurement to permit its use to assess psychological and psychophysical tests and scales and interpret the data obtained. The authors believe that some of the behavioral measurement models used today do not fit the data or are inherently self-contradictory. Applications of these models can therefore lead to unwarranted inferences regarding the status of the derived variables. These methods can also be difficult to apply, particularly in small-sample contexts without making additional, unrealistic assumptions. Ordinal methods more closely reflect the original data, are simple to apply, and can be used in samples of any size. The book's approach is in essence a return to simple empiricism in psychological measurement. Ordinal Measurement in the Behavioral Sciencesprovides: *methods for analyzing test responses; *extensive discussions of ordinal approaches to analyzing data that are judgments of stimuli; *methods for treating psychological data in ways consistent with its ordinal nature so as to stimulate new developments in this area; and *ordinal test theory and the unfolding methods that are applicable to cross-cultural studies. Advanced students, researchers, and practitioners concerned with psychological measurement should find this book relevant. Measurement professionals will find it provides useful and simple methods that stimulate thought about measurement's real issues.

Dr. Norman Cliff is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Southern California Dr. John A. Keats is an Emeritus Conjoint Professor at the University of Newcastle in Australia

Preface	p. ix
The Purpose of Psychological Assessment	p. 1
New Myths and Old Rules	p. 2
This Book's Motivation	p. 4
Some Historical Background of Testing	p. 5
Testing in Developing Countries	p. 14
The Evolution of Physical and Psychological Measurement Theory	p. 14
The Development of Test Theory and Practice	p. 15
Mathematical Models in Testing	p. 16
Ordinal Concepts as a Basis for Measurement	p. 22
Antitest Arguments	p. 23
Summary	p. 24
What Makes a Variable a Scale?	p. 25
Scales and Variables	p. 25
The Nature of Scientific Scales	p. 26
Relevance to Scales and Measurement Methods	p. 33
General Principles of Scientific Measurement	p. 34
A Fundamental Typology of Data	p. 38
Mental Tests and Data Relations	p. 41
Types of Assessment	p. 43
A Classification of Test Items	p. 43
Standard Scores	p. 44
Free-Answer With Dichotomous Scoring Assessments	p. 46
Free Response With Polytomous Items	p. 46
Creative Responses	p. 49
Multiple-Choice Items Dichotomously Scored	p. 52
Multiple-Choice Tests With Polytomous Scoring	p. 53
Types of Item Presentation	p. 54
Summary	p. 56
Item Scores and Their Addition to Obtain Total Test Scores in the Case of Dichotomous Items	p. 57
Ordinal Measurement	p. 57
Tied-Ranks Scores	p. 59
Evaluating Items, Tests and Scales	p. 60
Combining Item Scores for Dichotomous Items	p. 62
Summary	p. 69
Item Scores and Their Addition to Obtain Total Test Scores in the Case of Polytomous Items	p. 71
Scoring Polytomous Items	p. 71
Types of Polytomous Items	p. 76
Polytomous Items Scored Across Persons	p. 80
Summary	p. 81
Dominance Analysis of Tests	p. 83
Dominance Relations	p. 83
Pseudo-Orders From Randomness	p. 84
How Dichotomous Items Define an Order	p. 85
Data Basic to Assessing Consistency	p. 89
Measures of Test Consistency	p. 95
Ordinal Validity and Reliability	p. 101
Item-Universe and Score-Universe Relations	p. 107
Summary	p. 111
Approaches to Ordering Things and Stimuli	p. 113
One-Set Dominance	p. 113
Finding the Order	p. 116
Less Simple Orders	p. 118
Empirically Defining and Evaluating Dominance	p. 123
Testing the Dominance Axioms	p. 124
Assessing Transitivity	p. 126
Intersubject Consistency	p. 130
Finding the Order in Complete Data	p. 135
Overview	p. 141
Alternatives to Complete Paired Comparisons	p. 143
Datasets Are Often Incomplete	p. 143
Planned Subsets of Pairs	p. 144
Implied Order Relations	p. 148
Partial Ranking Methods	p. 158
Rating Scales	p. 159
Overview	p. 161
The Unfolding Model	p. 162
Why "Unfolding"?	p. 162
Analyzing Orders	p. 164
Unfolding of Orders Versus Analysis of Interstimulus Distances	p. 169
Comparison Between Multidimensional Unfolding Analysis and Factor Analysis of Correlated Variables	p. 172
Some Applications of the Unfolding Model	p. 174
Dichotomous Data	p. 177
Summary	p. 179
The Application of Ordinal Test Theory to Items in Tests Used in Cross-Cultural Comparisons	p. 181
Intercultural Comparability of Scores	p. 181
International Test Commission Guidelines	p. 184
Comparing Populations	p. 186
The Role of Ordinal Test Theory	p. 188
Multilevel Responses	p. 188
Summary	p. 192
Flow Chart for a Program to Carry Out a Complete Item Analysis of Items in a Test or Scale Using a Small Personal Computer	p. 194
Statistical Tables	p. 203
References	p. 212
Author Index	p. 219
Subject Index	p. 223
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.

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Ordinal Measurement in the Behavioral Sciences

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