Psychometrics

As flood risk rises in the U.S., technology and insights rise too, but even with these advances we still see the consequences of flood risk. Together, the rational actor paradigm (“RAP”), psychometrics, and cultural theory help to explain risk perceptions and behaviors of 20 respondents. Results from the mixed-methods approach found the RAP insufficient, less accurate than a coin toss (48%), when explaining respondent behaviors. Rather, risk perceptions and behaviors of the RAP explain the behaviors of lower risk portrayal groups (66%) and higher income groups (80%), with higher risk portrayals being relying on respondents’ trust in flood experts (45%) and cultural worldviews (55%). Cultural identities explain 65% of respondents’ behaviors across levels of risk portrayal (500-, 100-, and 25-year floodplain), and risk portrayal types (cumulative and AAL). In a world with increased risk, technology, and knowledge, researchers need understand the explanatory power of the RAP, psychometrics, and cultural theory.

Service learning is a pedagogy designed to teach democratic skills to prepare students to become civically engaged members of society. One of the challenges in the field of service learning is to demonstrate the effectiveness of this pedagogy. Common methodological problems include small sample sizes, difficulty differentiating correlation from causation, self-selection bias, and use of primarily qualitative and experiential outcome measures. The literature review failed to reveal any quantitative scales designed for the health professions. The purpose of this study was to develop and test a quantitative scale to measure service learning outcomes among health professions students, before and after an academic service learning activity.
Phase 1 of the study, the development phase, involved an extensive review of the literature to develop the conceptual framework and identify the operational indicators to be measured. Items were adapted from existing scales that were consistent with the personal and social responsibility dimensions and found to possess at least minimally acceptable reliability and validity. Items were adapted to add the health professions perspective which resulted in the preliminary twenty-two item scale, divided into four subscales: Civic Responsibility, Self-Efficacy Toward Service, Civic Participation, and Social Justice Attitudes.
Psychometric testing of this preliminary PSR Scale was done in 3 studies. Study 1 involved evaluation of content validity with subject matter experts utilizing a Content Validity Index. The scale was modified based on the results of the CVI and recommendations of the subject matter experts. The S-CVI/Ave for the entire scale was .84 suggesting content validity of the PSR Scale.
Study 2 utilized principal components analysis of the subscales to validate the dimensions and operational indicators. Data was constrained to four factors which accounted for 60.56% of the total variance. Items with factor loadings less than 0.4 were deleted. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was calculated for internal consistency. Based on these results, the scale was further revised by deleting items that decreased the Cronbach’s alpha. This resulted in a 16 item scale, containing four subscales, each with four items. The Cronbach’s alpha for the entire revised scale PSR Scale was .94.
Study 3 involved testing the final 16 item version for sensitivity. Wilcoxon signed rank analysis revealed statistically significant changes pre and post service learning activity in the Civic Participation Subscale. Civic Participation Subscale items that were significant included “volunteering time to support my community”, “being involved in programs and activities that improve my community”, and “being involved in activities that improve the health of my community”. These findings suggest that participation in a service learning activity can increase civic participation.
Psychometric testing of the Personal and Social Responsibility Scale (PSR) support preliminary validity, reliability and sensitivity of the instrument and the premise, consistent with prior research that changes in civic participation can occur as a result of service learning.

Argument is made for the use of variation permissive methods in the study of social judgment; one such dynamic method which purports to track on-line social evaluation (the mouse paradigm) is then introduced. The methodology of the mouse paradigm, which involves updating 'moment-to-moment' feelings via manipulation of a cursor by computer mouse, permits a wide range of experimental contrivance. Three varieties (SCALE, 1D and 2D), which differ in the amount of virtual (on screen) freedom of movement and psychological constraint, were tested with stereotyped targets (negative, ambivalent and positive) to determine any differences in their absolute distance time series and the extent to which aspects of these time series remained correlated with traditional scale-ratings of positivity and stability in feelings about targets. Results indicated a sharp difference between the two-dimensional (2D) variety and the one-dimensional varieties (SCALE and 1D), a finding which supports contention that the 2D variety possesses an appropriate balance of freedom and constraint.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the problem of
employing unidimensional deterministic scaling in a multidimensional
probabilistic world. The best known unidimensional
deterministic scaling method is Guttman scaling. The scope
of inquiry is limited to scaling with four dichotomous scale
items. As a consequence of this examination, the paper
offers two contributions to the study of scaling. First, it
identifies two paradoxes of existing unidimensional deterministic
scaling methods. Second, it suggests a general framework,
called segment analysis, from which to approach
unidimensional deterministic scaling with dichotomous scale
items.