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Ineffectiveness of Reverse Wording of Questionnaire Items: Let’s Learn from Cows in the Rain
OBJECTIVE: We examined the effectiveness of reverse worded items as a means of reducing or preventing response bias. We first distinguished between several types of response bias that are often confused in literature. We next developed arguments why reversing items is probably never a good way to ad...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2013
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3729568/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23935915 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0068967 |
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author | van Sonderen, Eric Sanderman, Robbert Coyne, James C. |
author_facet | van Sonderen, Eric Sanderman, Robbert Coyne, James C. |
author_sort | van Sonderen, Eric |
collection | PubMed |
description | OBJECTIVE: We examined the effectiveness of reverse worded items as a means of reducing or preventing response bias. We first distinguished between several types of response bias that are often confused in literature. We next developed arguments why reversing items is probably never a good way to address response bias. We proposed testing whether reverse wording affects response bias with item-level data from the Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory (MFI-20), an instrument that contains reversed worded items. METHODS: With data from 700 respondents, we compared scores on items that were similar with respect either to content or to direction of wording. Psychometric properties of sets of these items worded in the same direction were compared with sets consisting of both straightforward and reversed worded items. RESULTS: We did not find evidence that ten reverse-worded items prevented response bias. Instead, the data suggest scores were contaminated by respondent inattention and confusion. CONCLUSIONS: Using twenty items, balanced for scoring direction, to assess fatigue did not prevent respondents from inattentive or acquiescent answering. Rather, fewer mistakes are made with a 10-item instrument with items posed in the same direction. Such a format is preferable for both epidemiological and clinical studies. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3729568 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2013 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-37295682013-08-09 Ineffectiveness of Reverse Wording of Questionnaire Items: Let’s Learn from Cows in the Rain van Sonderen, Eric Sanderman, Robbert Coyne, James C. PLoS One Research Article OBJECTIVE: We examined the effectiveness of reverse worded items as a means of reducing or preventing response bias. We first distinguished between several types of response bias that are often confused in literature. We next developed arguments why reversing items is probably never a good way to address response bias. We proposed testing whether reverse wording affects response bias with item-level data from the Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory (MFI-20), an instrument that contains reversed worded items. METHODS: With data from 700 respondents, we compared scores on items that were similar with respect either to content or to direction of wording. Psychometric properties of sets of these items worded in the same direction were compared with sets consisting of both straightforward and reversed worded items. RESULTS: We did not find evidence that ten reverse-worded items prevented response bias. Instead, the data suggest scores were contaminated by respondent inattention and confusion. CONCLUSIONS: Using twenty items, balanced for scoring direction, to assess fatigue did not prevent respondents from inattentive or acquiescent answering. Rather, fewer mistakes are made with a 10-item instrument with items posed in the same direction. Such a format is preferable for both epidemiological and clinical studies. Public Library of Science 2013-07-31 /pmc/articles/PMC3729568/ /pubmed/23935915 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0068967 Text en © 2013 Sonderen et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article van Sonderen, Eric Sanderman, Robbert Coyne, James C. Ineffectiveness of Reverse Wording of Questionnaire Items: Let’s Learn from Cows in the Rain |
title | Ineffectiveness of Reverse Wording of Questionnaire Items: Let’s Learn from Cows in the Rain |
title_full | Ineffectiveness of Reverse Wording of Questionnaire Items: Let’s Learn from Cows in the Rain |
title_fullStr | Ineffectiveness of Reverse Wording of Questionnaire Items: Let’s Learn from Cows in the Rain |
title_full_unstemmed | Ineffectiveness of Reverse Wording of Questionnaire Items: Let’s Learn from Cows in the Rain |
title_short | Ineffectiveness of Reverse Wording of Questionnaire Items: Let’s Learn from Cows in the Rain |
title_sort | ineffectiveness of reverse wording of questionnaire items: let’s learn from cows in the rain |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3729568/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23935915 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0068967 |
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