Response Sets in a Multiple-Choice Test

Rapaport, Gerald M.; Berg, Irwin A.

doi:10.1177/001316445501500106

Cited by 18 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 5 publications

(2 reference statements)

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“…Clark (1956) observed a PPRS with college students only when they were pressed for time; they then gravitated toward the first position. Rapaport and Berg (1955) noted a PPRS only slightly more frequent than would be expected by chance with college examinees. Those manifesting a positional set tended to elect the central response position.…”

mentioning

confidence: 72%

Intraindividual and Interindividual Positional Preference Response Styles in Ability Tests

Hopkins

1964

Educational and Psychological Measurement

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mentioning

confidence: 72%

Intraindividual and Interindividual Positional Preference Response Styles in Ability Tests

Hopkins

1964

Educational and Psychological Measurement

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“…The inconsistency between this finding and the generalization that difficult items elicit response styles (Cronbach, 1946;Cronbach, 1950) may arise from differences between criticalness and the response styles investigated in the studies that were previously viewed as supporting this generalization, as well as the limitations of some of these studies. This finding about item difficulty, as well as the finding that the item's readability is not related to the extent that the item measures criticalness response style, suggests the desirability of reexamining conceptualizations of response styles as phenomena that appear only in rather unstructured situations (Cronbach, 1946;Cronbach, 1950;Rapaport and Berg, 1955), or that are &dquo;emitted in the absence of any known stimulus&dquo; (Bass, 1957, p. 83). (Such a conceptualization underlies the derivation of the procedures used in obtaining separate content and response style scores in the present study.)…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This finding about item difficulty, as well as the finding that the item's readability is not related to the extent that the item measures criticalness response style, suggests the de6irabili~y of re-examining conceptualizations of response styles as phenomena that appear only in rather unstructured situations (Cronbach, 1946;Cronbach, 1950;Rapaport & Berg, 1955), or that are "emitted in the absence of any known stimulus" (Bass, 1957, p. P3). (Such a conceptualization underlies the derivation of the procedures used in obtaining separate content and response style scores in the present stUdy.)…”

Section: -15-mentioning

confidence: 99%

Difficulty and Other Correlates of Criticalness Response Style At the Item Level

Stricker

1965

Educational and Psychological Measurement

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LARGELY as a result of Cronbach's (1946; reviews of the early literature on response sets-or response styles-on tests, the view is widely held that tests and test items that are difficult or ambiguous are most affected by those response styles, such as acquiescence, evasiveness, and extremeness, that are linked to the response format. Despite the prevalence of this view, the results of relevant studies are not altogether convincing, and are largely limited to two response styles-acquiescence, and the position of the chosen alternative on multiple-choice tests.One major group of relevant studies examined acquiescence on tests or items of varying difficulty or ambiguity. Only one of the studies (Gage, Leavitt, and Stone, 1957) concerns the difficulty issue. In a comparison of difficult and easy general information items, the reliability of the number of true responses was .68 for the 50 difficult items, and .09 for the 40 easy ones. The two kinds of items, however, did not represent exactly the same content areas.The other studies of this kind concern various facets of item ambiguity. Two of these studies directly concern ambiguity. In

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“…In contrast to Rapaport & Berg (1955), who indicate three possible levels that the testee can be thinking on while answering the items, the other researchers have not discussed why an observed answer variation has occurred. An observed preference for a certain response category may very well be a reflection of the testee's earlier experiences with similar tests or tests made by the same constructor.…”

Section: Example Of the Conceptual Confusionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…With this operational definition Gustav (1963), Marcus (1963), McNamara & Weitzman (1945 and Rapaport & Berg (1955) have all come to different conclusions concerning the existence of 'response set' in multiple choice questions.…”

Section: Example Of the Conceptual Confusionmentioning

confidence: 99%