A method to analyse measurement invariance under uncertainty in between-subjects design

  1. Martínez, José Antonio 1
  2. Ruiz Marín, Manuel 1
  3. Vivo Molina, María del Carmen 2
  1. 1 Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena
    info

    Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena

    Cartagena, España

    ROR https://ror.org/02k5kx966

  2. 2 Fundación para la Formación e Investigación Sanitaria de la Región de Murcia (España)
Journal:
The Spanish Journal of Psychology

ISSN: 1138-7416

Year of publication: 2012

Volume: 15

Issue: 3

Pages: 1510-1519

Type: Article

DOI: 10.5209/REV_SJOP.2012.V15.N3.39435 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openOpen access editor

More publications in: The Spanish Journal of Psychology

Abstract

In this research we have introduced a new test (H-test) for analyzing scale invariance in between group designs, and considering uncertainty in individual responses, in order to study the adequacy of disparate rating and visual scales for measuring abstract concepts. The H-test is easy to compute and, as a nonparametric test, does not require any a priori distribution of the data nor conditions on the variances of the distributions to be tested. We apply this test to measure perceived service quality of consumers of a sports services. Results show that, without considering uncertainty, the 1-7 scale is invariant, in line with the related works regarding this topic. However, de 1-5 scale and the 1-7 scale are invariant when adding uncertainty to the analysis. Therefore, adding uncertainty importantly change the conclusions regarding invariance analysis. Both types of visual scales are not invariant in the uncertainty scenario. Implications for the use of rating scales are discussed.

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Funding information

Manuel Ruiz Marín has been partially supported by the project MTM2009-07373 from Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación of Spain, Fundación para la Formación e Investigación Sanitarias and Fundación Seneca of the Región de Murcia.

Funders

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