Equidistant Response Options on Likert-Type Instruments: Testing the Interval Scaling Assumption Using Mplus

Georgios Sideridis1,2, Ioannis Tsaousis2, Hanan Ghamdi3

  • 1Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.

Related Concept Videos

Testing a Claim about Standard Deviation01:19

Testing a Claim about Standard Deviation

A complete procedure to test a claim about population standard deviation or population variance is explained here.
The hypothesis testing for the claim of population standard deviation (or variance) requires the data and samples to be random and unbiased. The population distribution also must be normal. There is no specific requirement on the sample size as the estimation is based on the chi-square distribution.
As a first step, the hypothesis (null and alternative) concerning the claim about...
2.5K
Self-Report Tests of Personality01:22

Self-Report Tests of Personality

Self-report inventories are objective personality assessments that use multiple-choice items or numbered scales, typically ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). They are often called Likert scales after Rensis Likert. These inventories are widely used due to their ease of administration and cost-effectiveness. One of the most prominent examples is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), initially developed in the 1940s to assess abnormal personality traits.
380
Interval Level of Measurement00:55

Interval Level of Measurement

For effective statistical analysis, data are classified into four levels of measurement—nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio.
Data measured using the interval scale are similar to ordinal level data because they have a definite arrangement. However, in the interval level of measurement, the differences between data values are meaningful even though the data does not have a starting point.
Temperature is measured using the interval scale. It is measurable data, and the difference between...
15.3K
Multiple Comparison Tests01:13

Multiple Comparison Tests

Multiple comparison test, abbreviated as MCT, is a post hoc analysis generally performed after comparing multiple samples with one or more tests. An MCT will help identify a significantly different sample among multiple samples or a factor among multiple factors.
It would be easy to compare two samples using a significance alpha level of 0.05. In other words, there is only one sample pair to be compared. However, it would be difficult to identify a significantly different sample if the number...
3.9K
Confidence Intervals01:21

Confidence Intervals

An unbiased point estimate is often insufficient to predict a population estimate, such as population mean or population proportion. In this scenario, a confidence interval is used. A confidence interval is an estimate similar to a  sample proportion. However, unlike the point estimate which is a single value, the confidence interval  contains a range of values. These values have lower and upper limits, known as confidence limits, and can be designated as L1 and L2, respectively.
A...
6.5K
Interpretation of Confidence Intervals01:19

Interpretation of Confidence Intervals

A confidence interval is a better estimate of the population than a point estimate, as it uses a range of values from a sample instead of a single value.
Confidence intervals have confidence coefficients that are crucial for their interpretation. The most common confidence coefficients are 0.90, 0.95, and 0.99, which can be written as percentages–90%, 95%, and 99%, respectively.
Suppose a person calculates a confidence interval with a confidence coefficient of 0.95. In that case, they can...
5.9K