Evaluation of a new technique for keying biographical inventories empirically. (Res. Bull. 51-2.).

Pattern analysis: the configural approach to predictive measurement.

“…It is thus apparent that although psychological measurement still depends heavily on level alone for discrimination, there is a growing belief (2,5,8,14,19,28) that (a) configuration is important in its own right, (6) it is more than a mere summation of constituent elements, and (c) it contributes most to prediction when taken in conjunction with level (i.e., with data on the relative amounts of the profile variables being studied). These principles have received widespread application in recent vocational and educational research (11,12,25,26).…”

“…Less explicitly, this concept is inherent in the practice of developing a number of different scoring keys for the same test or inventory on the basis of empirical data showing the relationships of these items to various criteria. The utilization of patterns of response represented by the development of such keys not only yields higher validity coefficients but also makes it possible to use the same psychometric instrument for a vari-ety of predictive tasks (14).…”

Prediction of technical school success from homogeneous biographical inventory scores.

“…Evaluations of various methods of using item analysis to key biographical materials have been completed by Lecznar (1951) and Pickrel (1954). Leczztar demonstrated that keys based upon pattrens of response, where the size and sign of phi coefficients follow a continuum between the sequential responses of an item, were more stable than keys based solely upon the selection of those choices for keying whose phi coefficients exceeded a given level of significance.…”