Browsing by Author "Stults, Daniel M."

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    Factors defined by negatively keyed items: The result of careless respondents?
    (1985) Schmitt, Neal; Stults, Daniel M.
    A frequently occurring phenomenon in factor and cluster analysis of personality or attitude scale items is that all or nearly all questionnaire items that are negatively keyed will define a single factor. Although substantive interpretations of these negative factors are usually attempted, this study demonstrates that the negative factor could be produced by a relatively small portion of the respondents who fail to attend to the negative-positive wording of the items. Data were generated using three different correlation matrices, which demonstrated that regardless of data source, when only 10% of the respondents are careless in this fashion, a clearly definable negative factor is generated. Recommendations for instrument development and data editing are presented.
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    Methodology review: Analysis of multitrait-multimethod matrices
    (1986) Schmitt, Neal; Stults, Daniel M.
    Procedures for analyzing multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) matrices are reviewed. Confirmatory factor analysis (Jöreskog, 1974) is presented as a general model allowing evaluation of the discriminant and convergent validity of MTMM matrices, both as a whole and in individual trait-method units. However, it is noted that this model is deficient with regard to analysis of trait-method interactions of the type described by Campbell and O’Connell (1967, 1982). Composite direct product models described by Browne (1984) are one possible solution to this problem. Further, more systematic use of hypothesis testing regarding convergent and discriminant validity in nested hierarchical models is recommended (Widaman, 1985), as well as the use of a procedure to cross-validate models of MTMM matrices described by Cudeck and Browne (1983).