A Comparison of the Use of Scrambled and Blocked Items in a Multi-Scale School Attitude Inventory

Abstract

There is no doubt that this is a widely held assumption. Any examina tion of multi-scale inventories reveals that those in most common use employ scrambled items. [Cf., e.g., the Bell Adjustment Inventory (1), Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (2), and the Washburne Social Adjustment Inventory (4).] In order to check the v?idity of this assumption, two forms of the writer's School Attitude Inventory were developed: Form BB (with items blocked according to scales) and Form SS (with items scrambled). To insure objective scrambling, scraps of paper numbered from 1 to 90 were thoroughly mixed and then drawn singly from a box. The question (on Form BB) with that number was then assigned the number of that particular draw. Except for the order of the items, the two forms were identical.