Assessment Survey

Failed Constructs and Salvaged Lessons: An Assessment of Student Knowledge about Information

This is an article that really fell apart and I basically do not have the energy to repair it.  There are some methodological problems and conceptual issues, but sometimes it is worth sharing out failures. 

Spring 2007, Information Knowledge Brief: Assessment Survey on Value of Information, Evaluation of Information, and Purpose of Information, handout used at 2007 Moraine Valley Information Literacy Summit

Statistical Measures: Reliability and Validity

Remember: An instrument cannot be valid if it is not reliable.

Psychological measurements: their uses and misuses: This is a pretty good overview of validity and reliability.

• Face Validity: Is it (true) valid “on its face”? What is the opinion of a non-expert about the instrument? This is the least precise measure of validity and the easiest to measure.
• Content Validity: Is the subject of the question or survey (true) valid? Does the question measure what it is suppose to measure (measure the objectives)?
• Construct Validity: How do the test items relate to each other? Are the items arranged in a logical order? Does the instrument measure what it is intended to measure and nothing else?
• Criterion-Related Validity: How will the results of the survey questions correlate (relate) to scores on another similar instrument? Are the objectives (criteria) being met and can that be independently validated?

from Survey Methods

Varimax Factor Analysis

1. File, Open, point to gss 93 subset.sav.

2. Statistics, Data Reduction, Factor Analysis

3. In the Factor Analysis dialog box, enter all the variables listed above in the "Variables" box.

4. Click on the Descriptives button and check Coefficients, and Significance Levels.

5. Click on the Extraction button and under Display check Unrotated Factor Matrix and Scree Plot. Leave as defaults the settings for Analyze Correlation Matrix and Extract Eigenvalues over 1.

6. Click on the Rotation button and select Varimax. Under Display, check Rotated Solution and Loading Plots.

7. Click on the Scores button and check :Display factor score coefficient matrix".

8. Click on the Options button and .check "Coefficient Display Format, Sorted by Size".

9. Click on OK to run the procedure.

From: G. David Garson, NC State

Links for Instrument Creation

Feed for Instrument Creation