Abstract

WELTER, Giselle Müller-Roger  and  CAPITAO, Cláudio Garcia. Ipsative measures in psychological evaluation. Aval. psicol. [online]. 2007, vol.6, n.2, pp. 157-165. ISSN 1677-0471.

This article aims to promote the discussion on the multidimensional forced choice instruments, or ipsative measure, in psychological evaluation. Measure can be ipsative through the properties of the item response format such as rank-ordered scales or through forced choice responses in which the respondent must choose items that are "most like me" or "less like me" from a set of items with equal social desirability. The forced choice format was designed to control response distortions due to social desirability, by means of attributing greater value to oneself to each latent construct, represented by the items contained in each item set, with equivalent social desirability value. The article discusses psychometric limitations of ipsative measures considering the Classic Test Theory, which must be taken into account at the determination of internal properties of the instruments, since its value overcomes its limitations, when prevention of item response distortion is needed.

Keywords : Psychological evaluation; Forced choice; Ipsative measure; Response distortion; Social desirability.

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