EXERCISE 16.2: IDENTIFYING RESPONSE BIASES IN ATTITUDE ITEMS OBJECTIVE: To practice identifying response biases in attitude items.

The “Geoscience Attitudes.sav” data set (see Appendix B) asks students about their attitudes toward the geosciences (archaeology, geography, and geology). The data set has 13 attitude items and 137 respondents (see Exercise 18.1 for a description of the content of each question). Examine the data set and try to identify individual cases (i.e., students) who appear to be engaging in some form of response bias. In particular, determine if any of the students are displaying signs of acquiescence, leniency, severity, central tendency, or socially desirable responding.

For the latter, you will have to examine the wording of the items carefully and try to identify items that you believe to be highest in social desirability. Then, determine if any student’s responses appear to differ for those items identified as socially desirable as compared to the less (or non-) socially desirable items.

1. Did you identify any individuals who appear to be providing biased responses?

2. Which cases appear to be demonstrating biased responses?

3. What forms of response biases did you identify?

4. What should we do with this information once we have it?