2. COMM 250 Agenda - Week 7 Housekeeping Today: RAT3 Lecture Continuing Surveys: Choices re: Scale items, layout Examples Determinism & Free Will – Part I ITE 7

3. Multiple Choice Items The Options (possible values) in MC Items should be: Mutually Exclusive Exhaustive Consistent Linear (follow in a logical order) Clear and concise Limited in number (so the researcher can make sense of them)

4. In-Class Team Exercise # 7 - Part I: First Do as Individuals, then produce a Team Version: Example of a BAD Item Which of the following describes your CURRENT living situation? 1) Married, no kids5) Divorced 2) Married, 1-3 kids at home6) Divorced, 1-3 kids at home 3) Married, 3 or more kids7) Divorced, 3+ kids at home at home8) Unmarried, but have kids 4) Unmarried ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- a) What mistakes make this a bad item? b) How would you fix this problem? Deliverable : a written answer to a & b ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

5. Solution Example of a BETTER Item Which best describes your CURRENT living situation? 1) Married, no kids5) Divorced, 1-3 kids at home 2) Married, 1-3 kids at home6) Divorced, more than 3 kids at home 3) Married, more than 3 kids7) Unmarried, no kids at home8) Unmarried, 1-3 kids at home 4) Divorced, no kids9) Other (Please specify: ______________ )

6. Solution Example of a Better APPROACH What is your marital status? 1) Single3) Divorced 2) Married4) Widowed How many children do you have? ___ ___ How many CHILDREN currently live with you? ___ ___ How many other ADULTS currently live with you? ___ ___

7. Scale Items Even / Odd Number of Values Even - no midpoint - forces users to choose Odd - has a midpoint - allows a “neutral” response (I prefer Odd) Number of values 3-5-7-9 or 4-6-8-10 point scales: 3-4 is simple but may not allow “discrimination” 9-10 is usually overkill 5-6-7 is usually best (I prefer 7)

8. Determinism & Free Will Determinism Everything is determined in advance If science knew all the rules, it could specify all outcomes (predict all events) It seems to work with billiard balls – does it work for human behavior? But does this imply that there is no free will? (We’ll return to this when we get to statistics.)

9. Surveys The rest of Lecture 7 will be in the form of examples of questionnaire items on Overhead Transparencies - these will that highlight the lessons discussed in the following slides from Week 6.

10. Open-ended vs. Closed Questions Open-ended Items (“Fill in the Blanks”) Useful for “exploratory” data collection ADV: Respondents (Rs) aren’t “led” by some list of available choices / opinions DISADV: Requires much more work - to quantify, researcher must categorize and “code” responses Closed-ended Items (“Multiple Choice”) Useful when all of the available responses are known ADV: 1) Easier to quantify, and 2) Rs are reacting to the same stimulus materials (some list of choices) DISADV: 1) Researcher may miss some important reasons/options

11. Multiple Choice Items The Options (possible values) in MC Items should be: Mutually Exclusive Exhaustive Consistent Linear (follow in a logical order) Clear and concise Limited in number (so the researcher can make sense of them)

12. Scale Items Even / Odd Number of Values Even - no midpoint - forces users to choose Odd - has a midpoint - allows a “neutral” response (I prefer Odd) Number of values 3-5-7-9 or 4-6-8-10 point scales: 3-4 is simple but may not allow “discrimination” 9-10 is usually overkill 5-6-7 is usually best (I prefer 7)

13. In-Class Team Exercise # 7 - Part II: TBA – in class ! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------