EXERCISE 16.3: DEVELOPING TEST MATERIALS AND PROCEDURES THAT WILL (HOPEFULLY) REDUCE RESPONSE BIAS IN PARTICIPANTS OBJECTIVE: To gain practice in developing strategies to reduce biases in responding to attitude questionnaires.

Imagine you have been asked to develop a personality test that measures antisocial behaviors. The measure will be used for three different purposes. The first purpose will be to identify high school students who are having trouble in school and thus may be referred to an alternative high school for troubled youths. The second purpose is to determine whether parolees still pose a significant risk to society if they are paroled and thus allowed to rejoin society. In the third situation, the test will be used to screen candidates applying for the job of police officer with a small municipality (15,000 residents) that uses community policing as its major crime-fighting mechanism.