Summary
Contents
The goal for any social scientist conducting a survey is to develop a rating on some attitude, value or opinion — a summated rating scale. Aimed at helping researchers construct more effective scales, Spector shows how to determine the number of items necessary, the appropriate amount of response categories and the most productive wording of items. The author discusses how to sort good items from bad (including item-remainder coefficients and Cronbach's alpha) and how to validate a scale, including dimensional validity from factor analysis. User-friendly, the book concludes with a step-by-step account of how to develop a summated rating scale based on classical test theory.
Theory of Summated Rating Scales
Theory of Summated Rating Scales
Before proceeding to the development of summated rating scales, it would be instructive to briefly review the theory behind them. The basic underlying idea derives from classical test theory, which provides the rationale for repeated, summated measurement.
Classical test theory distinguishes true score from observed score. A true score is the theoretical value ...
