PS28C Psychometrics

1
PS28CPsychometrics

• Lecture10
• Tests of Motivation and Attitudes

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Final Exam

• Final Exam is on May 2, 2007 between 1 and 3 pm
• Covers Lectures 1 to 10
• Will be supplied with calculators and formula
  sheets
• Tutorial assignments are due April 25, 2007

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Introduction

• Will briefly review several alternative
  approaches to assessing psychological tendencies
• Review some measures of interest and methods of
  constructing attitude scales
• Review measures of cognitive style and
  personality types
• Review situational and performance tests
• Review tests of self concept and social
  perception
• Review observer reports and ratings
• Review the use of biodata

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What is Motivation?

• Despite importance of motivation relatively
  little theoretical work
• No commonly accepted theories of motivation,
  interests or attitudes

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What is Motivation?

• Motivation is the reasons for doing what we do
• Factors which lead you to persist at a task
• States, moods, drives and interests may be
  alternative expressions of motivation

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Interests

• Interests associated with industrial-organizationa
  l psychology
• Interests theorized as the driving force for work
  motivation
• Definition of interests is circular
• People do a job because of interests, interests
  can be identified by studying people in a job

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Tests of Interests

• Assess conscious aspects of vocational interests
• Commonly used in vocational guidance
• Three main tests
• Strong-Campbell Vocational Interest Inventory
• Kuder Tests
• Vocational Preference Inventory

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Tests of Interests

• Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory
• Used empirical criterion keying to match
  interests with items
• Responses to items are compared to people working
  in 57 female occupations and 67 male occupations
• Patterns of matches suggest various possible
  occupations
• Useful as an aid in discussing vocational
  interests

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Tests of Interests

• Kuder General Interest Inventory
• Assesses 10 general areas of occupational
  interest
• Items provide respondents with three different
  choices
• Respondents indicate most and least liked choice

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Tests of Interests

• The Vocational Preference Inventory
• Based on a large scale programme of research into
  vocational preferences
• Respondents are presented with 160 occupational
  titles and they indicate their like or dislike of
  each occupation
• Moderate correlations with job choice

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Measuring Attitudes

• Three broad approaches to assessing attitudes
• Thurstone Attitude Scaling
• Guttman Scaling, and
• Likert Scales

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Thurstone Attitude Scales

• Statements reflecting various degrees of an
  attitude are collected
• Large panel of judges sort statements according
  to intensity of attitude into one of 11
  categories
• Statements on which all judges agree and which
  cover complete domain of content of attitude are
  used to create an item

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Thurstone Attitude Scales

• Many items are used to create a measure of
  attitudes
• Respondents are asked to pick one of the 11
  statements presented in an item
• Scores are the average rating across items or the
  highest rating for any single item

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Thurstone Attitude Scales

• Two practical problems
• At least 100 judges are required to create a
  reliable ranking of statements
• Judges must be representative of the population
  which will complete the measure

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Guttman Scaling

• Items are ordered so that if a respondent agrees
  with one item they have agreed with all previous
  items and disagreed with all following items
• Theoretically each item will be perfectly
  correlated with the total score on the measure

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Guttman Scaling

• Three major problems
• Scale may not be unidimensional but complex
• Technique produces an ordinal scale
• Individual items are rarely, if ever, perfectly
  correlated with total scores on a measure

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Likert Scaling

• A series of statements about an attitude are
  followed by a five to seven point rating scale
• Rating scale indicates the degree to which the
  respondent agrees with the statement

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Likert Scaling

• Two advantages over Thurstone and Guttman scaling
• Items can be subjected to factor analysis
• Item analysis techniques can be applied to scale
• Disadvantages include
• No agreement on level of measurement
• Only the conscious aspects of attitudes are
  assessed

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Assessing Cognitive Style

• Cognitive styles are a preferences for processing
  information and perceiving the world
• Generalize across behaviours and personality
  types
• Much research supports a preference for holistic
  versus particularistic style of processing
  information

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Assessing Cognitive Style

• Field dependence focuses on the complete picture
• Field independence focuses on specific details
• Influences academic and career choices
• Assessed by the Rod Frame Test or Embedded
  Figures Test

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Rod Frame Test

• Participant stares into a box
• Rod and a frame are moved inside the box
• Participant must determine when rod is upright
• Those who can detect when the rod is upright are
  field independent
• Those who can not detect when the rod is upright
  are field dependent

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Embedded Figures Test

• Participants given a geometric figure asked to
  choose a drawing which contains a matching figure
  of same size orientation
• Those who can find drawing are highly field
  dependent
• Those who can not find drawing are highly field
  independent

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AssessingPersonality Styles

• Related to cognitive styles but add additional
  elements
• Comprised of two or more elements
• For example
• A preference for holistic versus particularistic
  thinking and
• A preference for the use of reason versus
  intuition to solve problems
• Myers Briggs Type Indicator example of measure of
  personality styles

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Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

• Myers Briggs Type Indicator assesses several
  dimensions
• Extroversion versus Introversion
• Sensing versus Perceiving
• Thinking versus Feeling
• Judging versus Perceiving
• Four dimensions create 16 distinct personality
  types

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Situational and Performance Tests

• Test taker placed in a mock situation similar to
  actual situation
• Assess emotional, interpersonal, attitudinal, and
  other psychological traits rather than skills or
  knowledge
• Examples are in-basket exercises, role plays,
  leaderless group discussions

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In Basket Exercise

• Candidate for management job given an in-basket
  of memos
• Must sort through and make decisions based on
  memos in limited time
• Decisions must be written on memos
• Scored in terms of leadership, organization,
  fairness, judgment and managerial ability

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Tests of Self-Concept and Social Perception

• Based on Phenomenological Psychology
• Emphasizes perceptions of events rather than the
  events themselves
• Several types of tests
• Self-esteem inventories
• Adjective checklists
• Q-Sorts
• Semantic differential
• Tests of social climate

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Observer Reports Ratings

• Relies on systematic observations of peoples
  behaviours in naturalistic settings
• Richer source of information about a person than
  from psychological tests alone
• Behaviour in a natural setting is evaluated and
  recorded over a long period of time by a reporter

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Observer Reports Ratings

• Examples include
• Naturalistic observations
• Inteviews
• Ratings by parents, teachers, supervisors,
  colleagues
• Peer nominations and assessments

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BioData

• Basic demographic information collected from
  databases or application forms
• Correlate age, gender, and other reported
  features with occupational or academic success
• Good predictors of future performance
• Do not generalize well across settings