As I was saying a few days ago -
On Sun, 16 Sep 2001 17:37:55 -0400, Rich Ulrich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
[ ... ]
> It is often useful to read what is published in several
> textbooks. Sometimes old textbooks have as much
> to say as new textbooks do, if the old ones don't
> assume so many answers. An older one might have
> an attitude and commentary that makes it clearer why
> a newer book takes the emphasis that it does.
> [ ... ]
A week or two ago, some one recommended
Gary Manarell's 1974 textbook, "Scaling, A sourcebook
for behavioral scientists." This is a collection of classics.
It reprints Frederick Lord's entertaining (but serious)
article (1953) on doing statistics on the numbers on
football jerseys. It has Stevens (1959) on scaling.
It has Likert's original observations on writing
an attitude scale (1932, which I had not seen elsewhere).
This Likert article has 4 items of example which are
surprising to me in a couple of respects. Two of the items
are scaled categories, instead of being symmetrical
ratings around "Undecided" or indifferent. But the content
is more surprising. Race relations have surely shifted --
First question: "How far in our educational system
(aside from trade education) should the most intelligent
negroes be allowed to go?" This has choices ranged
from 1-5, Grade school to Grad./professional schools.
Second: "In a community where the negroes outnumber
the whites, a negro who is insolent to a white man should be:"
another set of 5 categories runs from "excused or ignored"
through several increasing levels of violence, through
"lynched":
- If negroes *didn't* outnumber the whites, how was it different?
There are two examples with conventional, symmetrical
scales of approval.
"Where there is segregation, the negro section should have
the same equipment in paving, water, electric light facilities
as are found in the white districts." It makes sense for the
reader to "Strongly approve" that, or not.
I can't even tell which end is supposed to be liberal on the
fourth item: "All negroes belong in one class and should be
treated in about the same way."
--
Rich Ulrich, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.pitt.edu/~wpilib/index.html
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