i think we are all missing the main point if you have a number of these items where, your goal (perhaps) is to SUM them together in some way ... where one end represents low amounts of the "thing" presented and the other end represents large amounts of the thing presented ... then ACROSS items ... the issue is do Ss tend to respond at the low end or the high end?
i really don't care if the exact scale IS interval or interpreted by Ss as such ... the main thing is how do they respond across a set of items? whether or not these data or scales are interval or not, the MEAN has meaning ... excuse the pun ... i am willing to bet that those Ss who produce mean values close to 1 below are not experiencing any serious stress ... whereas those Ss whose means are close to 6 or 7 ... are now, does that mean i know precisely what they are thinking/feeling? of course not but, it is plenty good enough to get a good idea of variation across Ss on these items or dimensions i really don't see what the big fuss is At 08:10 AM 2/26/02 -0800, Jay Tanzman wrote: >Jay Warner wrote: > > > > Jay Tanzman wrote: > > > > > I just got chewed out by my boss for modelling the means of some 7-point > > > semantic differential scales. The scales were part of a written, > > > self-administered questionnaire, and were laid out like this: > > > > > > Not stressful 1__ 2__ 3__ 4__ 5__ 6__ 7__ Very stressful Dennis Roberts, 208 Cedar Bldg., University Park PA 16802 <Emailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]> WWW: http://roberts.ed.psu.edu/users/droberts/drober~1.htm AC 8148632401 ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ =================================================================
