An examination of Alternative Multidimensional Scaling Techniques

The purpose of this study is to compare alternative multidimensional scaling (MDS) methods for constraining the stimuli on the circumference of a circle and on the surface of a sphere. Specifically, the existing MDS-T method for plotting the stimuli on the circumference of a circle is applied, and its extension is proposed for constraining the stimuli on the surface of a sphere. The data analyzed come from previous research and concerns Maslach and Jackson's burnout syndrome and Holland's vocational personality types. The configurations for the same data on the circle and the sphere shared similarities but also had differences, that is, the general item-groupings were the same but most of the differences across the two methods resulted in more meaningful interpretations for the three-dimensional configuration. Furthermore, in most cases, items and/or scales could be better discriminated from each other on the sphere.