- about the citation; and some musing.
On 19 Sep 2001 18:11:59 -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (dennis roberts) wrote:
> At 05:14 PM 9/19/01 -0400, Rich Ulrich wrote:
>
> >It has Likert's original observations on writing
> >an attitude scale (1932, which I had not seen elsewhere).
dmr >
> likert's work appeared in the archives of psychology ... #141 i think ...
> in 1932 ... it was his dissertation work ... under the direction i think of
> gardner murphy
One of the 3 references cited is Murphy. It says #140, 1932,
Archives of Psychology.
>
> the intention of likert's work was NOT to validate in any way ... the 3
> scales he used in that dissertation ... but, to show that a simpler method
> of attitude item scaling would be about as useful as the much harder to do
> ... thurstonian scaling ... equal appearing intervals i think
>
> for sure, it is simpler
>
> however, we have to keep in mind that this was 70 years ago ... i hope we
> have learned a few things since then ... but, sometimes i wonder
> [snip, start of my cited 'race' example, and sig.]
We have learned that social attitudes are not -- contrary to
the regard of some social scientists in the 1930s -- they are
not permanent, essential parts of the soul; which might be
measurable to nice precision. Attitudes on race and attitudes
on sex roles underwent a sea-change during WW II, and the
recognition of variability undermined the notion that re-measuring
would pin down some useful 'true scores' for those attitudes.
By comparison -
the people today who think that what we measure as IQ is
inherent-and-fixed are making approximately the same mistake.
The political surveys that predicted Truman would lose to Dewey
(famous error in the 1948 Presidential race) were based on
questions asked 6 weeks (I think it was) before the election.
- that should have been wise enough, if attitudes were fixed.
Moreover, in order to less-offend a person's privacy, the pollsters
asked, "Who do you think will win?" instead of the modern,
"Who would you vote for if the election were today?"
I'm saying we have learned something about attitudes, and that
improves the logical manipulations we do, and conclusions that
we are willing to draw. But look at the discussions we have had
about the scoring of performance for students (and their schools).
As statisticians, we are pleased with neither the measurements
nor the uses made of them.
Our direct tools for item development and scoring now include
methods that
(a) definitely: are more computer-intensive and
(b) hopefully: yield scales that are more precise and reliable.
But scale developers and attitude surveyors still mess up.
I guess I am concluding that what we have learned about
scoring, since then, has had some notable successes.
But it is hard to keep an eye on successes -- compared to the
everyday failures. We still see botch-ups people make when
composing their items, and, later, when using their results.
--
Rich Ulrich, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.pitt.edu/~wpilib/index.html
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