Where is a good psychometrician when you need one?
Where is a good psychometrician when you need one?
I happen to have friends and acquaintances ranging back into college days in the 60's who have specialized in the creation of polls, tests, and questionnaires designed to get at the "truth."
The fact of the matter is there are many nuances involved in structuring questions to avoid introducing bias in the head of the one writing answers. In over 40 years of experience, I realize this is one of those fields where there is no shame in seeking out a real professional to help you if the answers are important enough to assure they are valid. When I want to create a survey or questionnaire, I often consult with an expert.
Think of it as hiring an attorney when you go to court. You may not bother if the worst penalty you face is a traffic fine. If you are charged with a serious offense or being sued for all your assets, the stakes are higher and you should have an attorney.
If you are going to make decisions and implement actions based on the result of your survey, you should have a professional help you formulate it. If you are not going to make decisions and implement actions, why on earth are you bothering with a survey?
One source of psychometricians who may be available for consulting is a major university in your area. The usual credentials are Ph.D. in Quantitative Psychology, Educational Measurement, or Psychometrics. When you first talk with a psychometrician, he/she should be asking you two questions:
- How will you use the information you gather?
- Who are the people to be queried (job title, education level, etc.)?
Whether it is preparing an intelligence test, or a certification exam, or a political poll, or a customer satisfaction survey, the psychometrician will try to use scientific methodology to ensure the test questions are fair, accurate, able to be understood by all taking the test
(survey), and are precise measures of the test-taker's competency
(real opinion) in a given area. The psychometrician also uses scientific reasoning to determine scoring procedures, passing score levels
(significance to the organization on whether it should modify procedures), and equivalence among multiple versions of one test.