Assessment, Statistics, and Research

  American Church 2024 by Geoffrey W. Sutton & Designer Assessment name: Worldview Beliefs Scale overview: The Worldview Beliefs is a measure of 10 beliefs commonly held by American Christians. Authors: Aaron T. McLaughlin and others (see reference below) Response Type: Five-point rating scale ranging from less to more conservative with 3 = a neutral rating. Scale items: There are 10 beliefs in the scale. The topics are as follows:   Abortion   Acceptable marriage partners   Acceptable sex   Creation-evolution   Birth control   Religious values and politics   Alcohol consumption   Women as pastors/ religious teachers   Psychometric properties The authors provide means and standard deviations in Table 1. Internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha) = .79. Comments The measure along with other items presented in the article offer a perspective on several components of a Christian worldview. The different ways groups responded to the items reminds us

  US Presidential Poling Data Reveal A Potential Validity Problem Do you want to know how people are likely to vote? Or, do you want to know who is likely to be the next president? What is the purpose of national polls? Those interested in politics get a glimpse of how people might vote in an election. But how valid are those data?  What is not obvious is that the national polls are not the most valid measure of who will become president. That’s not because of problems of accuracy or methodology. It’s because in the US, the popular vote does not determine who will be the next president. Hence, national polls lack the level of predictive validity available in other polls. Validity refers to how well a measure measures what it is supposed to measure.  Pollsters  assess validity in different ways.  The key question is what is the purpose of the poll?  If the purpose is to reveal the likely votes of Americans, then a national poll has a degree of construct validity. If the poll is to p

  Considering Locus of Control 2024 Assessment name: Rotter’s Locus of Control Scale Scale overview: Rotter’s Locus of Control Scale is a 29-item measure of beliefs about external or internal sources of influence on one’s life. The scale is also referred to as LCS. Author: Julian Rotter Response Type: Forced choice between two items. Scale items: See the items at the bottom of this post. Psychometric properties: A review of internal consistency values from several studies revealed a mean of .663 and test-retest mean of .663 (Huizing, 2015). Klockars, A. J., & Varnum, S. W. (1975) found six factors suggesting the scale measures multiple dimensions. Lange and Tiggermann (2010) reported test-retest reliability of .61 in their sample.   Comment : Some researchers have questioned the structure of the original scale in terms of its ability to clearly measure either internal or external locus of control. Additional measures have been developed including a measure