Louis J. Moran

Repetitive Psychometric Measures: Equating Alternate Forms

The 20 alternate forms of five psychometric measures (Number Facility, Visualization, Speed of Perception, Speed of Closure, and Flexibility of Closure) were administered to two samples of 544 and 508 college students. All alternate forms but that for Number Facility were found to be reliably different in difficulty level. Statistical weights derived from either sample were found to decrease variability of alternate form means in the other sample. Correction factors were provided for the 20 alternate forms of all but the Number Facility measure.

Japanese and American association structures

The free word associations of 258 Japanese college women were compared with associations of 258 American college women to the same 80-word list. Subgroups in each sample evidenced the same four idiodynamic associative sets: Perceptual referent, Object referent, Concept referent, and Dimension referent. Orthogonal rotated-factor structures were similar. The distribution of set “types” among Japanese women, however, was markedly different from that of the American women. The import of this variable incidence of idiodynamic sets in different populations was discussed with special reference to traditional word-association commonality tables. It was concluded that instructions in the free-word-association experiment tend to evoke a set to produce personal association hierarchies, but that the set to communicate tends to activate (in the same person) a more general association hierarchy, one more closely resembling the hierarchy depicted in traditional word-association commonality tables.

Objective Approximations of Idiodynamic Associative Sets

The differential availability of Perceptual-referent (predication), Object-referent (functional), Concept-referent (synonym or superordinate), and Dimension-referent (contrast or coordinate) associates was determined for a pool of familiar words. From this pool, 28 stimulus words were drawn to construct a multiple-choice form, with one of the four alternate associates appropriate to each of the four sets. One of the four alternates was a “popular” (maximally compatible with one set), with 7 populars representing each set. This multiple-choice form successfully identified Ss with idiodynamic free-association sets. As in free word association, Ss were able to increase their commonality score when instructed to identify the popular associates among the four alternatives.

Relationship of association structures to verbal ability.

No relationship between verbal ability and idiodynamic associative sets was found in two samples of college freshmen. An earlier finding which related an Object-referent associative set to lower verbal ability was rejected. In the light of Entwistles recently published results, it was concluded that antecedent conditions related to idiodynamic sets might best be studied in pre-school children or mental retardates.