Abstract
During the phase of empirically oriented personality research, methodological problems concerning questionnaires have mainly been discussed with respect to test statistical properties (cf. Löhr & Angleitner, 1980, p. 218). Unfortunately, validity coefficients, expressed as correlations between test scores and an external criterion, generally remained relatively low [according to Janke (1973) between .20 and .30]. One reason for this might be that research focused on responses to items, but rarely on the conditions leading to responses. What seems necessary is the reconstruction of the entire process of responding to an item, and the specification of relations between the components which constitute this process (cf. Fiske, 1982; Schwarzer, 1982). The aim of such an approach is the elimination of methodological artifacts in a more direct way.
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Helfrich, H. (1986). On Linguistic Variables Influencing the Understanding of Questionnaire Items. In: Angleitner, A., Wiggins, J.S. (eds) Personality Assessment via Questionnaires. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-70751-3_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-70751-3_10
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