Download full text
(external source)
Citation Suggestion
Please use the following Persistent Identifier (PID) to cite this document:
https://doi.org/10.18148/srm/2018.v12i2.7224
Exports for your reference manager
How to Abbreviate Questionnaires and Avoid the Sins?
[journal article]
Abstract Creating shortened versions of research tools is common and justified. Unfortunately, it is often performed without due methodological care and awareness of the consequences of such actions. Even though the errors committed during short form construction were collected by Smith and his collaborators... view more
Creating shortened versions of research tools is common and justified. Unfortunately, it is often performed without due methodological care and awareness of the consequences of such actions. Even though the errors committed during short form construction were collected by Smith and his collaborators in 2000, it did not distinctly affect the practice. The mistakes made by researchers still come down to two main faults: assuming the transferability of validity and reliability between the full and shortened versions, and lowering the validity and reliability requirements for short forms. These two problems manifest as 9 sins committed during the construction of short forms. This article intends to present procedures which prevent these mistakes and ensure creating possibly the most reliable short version of a research tool and assessing the costs of a selected shortening method. To this end, the work determined a priori the expected length of the tool, the benefit of reduced questionnaire completion time in relation to the cost of reliability loss. Also, it estimated overlapping variance of the full and short version and classification accuracy of the new, short version. Since there are many statistical techniques of questionnaire shortening, an additional effect of this article is a comparison of the efficiency of shortening by means of three various techniques. The results show similarity between the method based on factor loadings and Cronbach's α method, and a slight advantage over the two of a method based on difficulty and discriminatory power in the IRT paradigm.... view less
Keywords
questionnaire; development; quality assurance; reliability; survey research
Classification
Methods and Techniques of Data Collection and Data Analysis, Statistical Methods, Computer Methods
Free Keywords
shortening of test; abbreviated version
Document language
English
Publication Year
2018
Page/Pages
p. 147-160
Journal
Survey Research Methods, 12 (2018) 2
ISSN
1864-3361
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed
Licence
Deposit Licence - No Redistribution, No Modifications