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A recommendation for applied researchers to substantiate the claim that ordinal variables are the product of underlying bivariate normal distributions

A simulation study was carried out to study the behaviour of the polychoric correlation coefficient in data not compliant with the assumption of underlying continuous variables. Such data can produce relatively high estimated polychoric correlations (in the order of .62). Applied researchers are pro...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Kampen, Jarl K., Weeren, Arie
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Netherlands 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5559587/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28867833
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11135-016-0378-2
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author Kampen, Jarl K.
Weeren, Arie
author_facet Kampen, Jarl K.
Weeren, Arie
author_sort Kampen, Jarl K.
collection PubMed
description A simulation study was carried out to study the behaviour of the polychoric correlation coefficient in data not compliant with the assumption of underlying continuous variables. Such data can produce relatively high estimated polychoric correlations (in the order of .62). Applied researchers are prone to accept these artefacts as input for elaborate modelling (e.g., structural equation models) and inferences about reality justified by sheer magnitude of the correlations. In order to prevent this questionable research practice, it is recommended that in applications of the polychoric correlation coefficient, data is tested with goodness-of-fit of the BND, that such statistic is reported in published applications, and that the polychoric correlation is not applied when the test is significant.
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spelling pubmed-55595872017-08-31 A recommendation for applied researchers to substantiate the claim that ordinal variables are the product of underlying bivariate normal distributions Kampen, Jarl K. Weeren, Arie Qual Quant Article A simulation study was carried out to study the behaviour of the polychoric correlation coefficient in data not compliant with the assumption of underlying continuous variables. Such data can produce relatively high estimated polychoric correlations (in the order of .62). Applied researchers are prone to accept these artefacts as input for elaborate modelling (e.g., structural equation models) and inferences about reality justified by sheer magnitude of the correlations. In order to prevent this questionable research practice, it is recommended that in applications of the polychoric correlation coefficient, data is tested with goodness-of-fit of the BND, that such statistic is reported in published applications, and that the polychoric correlation is not applied when the test is significant. Springer Netherlands 2016-07-06 2017 /pmc/articles/PMC5559587/ /pubmed/28867833 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11135-016-0378-2 Text en © The Author(s) 2016 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
spellingShingle Article
Kampen, Jarl K.
Weeren, Arie
A recommendation for applied researchers to substantiate the claim that ordinal variables are the product of underlying bivariate normal distributions
title A recommendation for applied researchers to substantiate the claim that ordinal variables are the product of underlying bivariate normal distributions
title_full A recommendation for applied researchers to substantiate the claim that ordinal variables are the product of underlying bivariate normal distributions
title_fullStr A recommendation for applied researchers to substantiate the claim that ordinal variables are the product of underlying bivariate normal distributions
title_full_unstemmed A recommendation for applied researchers to substantiate the claim that ordinal variables are the product of underlying bivariate normal distributions
title_short A recommendation for applied researchers to substantiate the claim that ordinal variables are the product of underlying bivariate normal distributions
title_sort recommendation for applied researchers to substantiate the claim that ordinal variables are the product of underlying bivariate normal distributions
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5559587/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28867833
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11135-016-0378-2
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