Lack Of Discriminant Validity Research Articles

Barriers to Women in Management Careers: Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Women as Managers Scale

Stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination serve as major barriers to women's career adjustment and advancement. To assess the current level of attitudes and the change in attitudes toward members of diverse populations in a variety of occupational roles, psychometrically sound assessment instruments are needed. The Women as Managers Scale is one such instrument. Exploratory factor and principle components analyses have been used in past research to challenge the dimensionality and reliability of the Women as Managers Scale. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed that a three-factor model was superior to a one-factor model, and was stable across subgroups. Evidence for discriminant validity among the factors was, however, weak. A possible explanation of the lack of discriminant validity is offered.

A transcultural comparison of the eating disorder inventory in former east and West Berlin

The Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI) was used in a transcultural study of East and West Berlin clinical and nonclinical samples at a time when the two parts of the city were still strictly separated. East Berlin patients with anorexia nervosa scored significantly lower than their Western counterparts with regard to the majority of EDI scales. Furthermore, there was a lack of discriminant validity for the -East Berlin clinical and nonclinical samples. It was speculated that this deficit might reflect a lack of transcultural validity in the psychological constructs upon which the questionnaire is based. However, the study revealed some evidence of meaningful correlations with clinical parameters. Finally, evidence was presented supporting internal consistency of the subscales and convergent validity of the EDI with the Eating Attitudes Jest (EAT). © 1992 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Private Self-Consciousness: Does it Influence Convergent and Discriminant Validity of Self-Reported Anxiety and Depression?

A continuing problem in measurement of anxiety and depression with self-report is lack of discriminant validity. It is argued that private self-consciousness might be expected to be related to both convergent and discriminant validity of self-reported anxiety and depression. Several self-report measures of anxiety and depression were administered to 157 female undergraduates, ages 20 to 36 years, but no evidence was found for a moderating influence of private self-consciousness. The possibility of lack of correspondence between private self-consciousness and self-awareness with regard to attentiveness to internal states is discussed as a possible explanation.

Transsituational variability in human performance within assessment centers

Current models in the psychology of personality describe behavior as largely a function of the situation (i.e., situation specific) rather than reflective of broad underlying stable traits (i.e., consistent). Because of sample size limitations and inappropriate levels of abstraction in performance measures, this “interactionist” explanation of behavior has rarely been formally evaluated in industrial/organizational psychology. In this study 2056 assessment center candidates were rated on eight skills or abilities (traits) measured over five situational exercises (situations). Person, situation, and trait variance components were identified via the multitrait—multimethod matrix analysis. The results revealed major sources of variance from person and person × situation components, high convergent validity in the ratings, but a lack of discriminant validity across specialized skills and abilities. Assessees performed differently in the various situational exercises (i.e., person × situation interaction), although differential ratings were probably due largely to halo error. The findings are discussed in the context of substantive and methodological issues relating to transsituational variability in behavior.

Comments on "Institutional Contributions to Scholarly Journals of Business"

The article Institutional Contributions to Scholarly Journals of Business'l is misleading. The authors' intentions are noble: to help students choose institutions for graduate study, to assist educational administrators in selecting additions to their faculties, and to assist government and foundation officials in determining allocation of research and service grants. In fact, the authors present very little information of value to anyone since their criterion for ranking schools fails to produce meaningful differences among the schools mentioned. The problems touched upon below include ( 1 ) a lack of discriminant validity; (2) an apparent absence of convergent validity of a type central to the authors' argument; (3) an inexplicably narrow operational measure of a very diffuse concept (institutional quality); (4) a failure to define their major dependent variable (institutional quality); (5) a failure to provide readers with a brief familiarity with other pertinent literature and methodology; and (6) the absence of any insight offered concerning the dynamics of business or management as a subject matter with differential development ,among its component parts and the implication of this for studying their dependent variable. The most serious problem of the article is the inability of their independent variable to distinguish between schools of business. The authors note quite appropriately that absolute differences among adjacent positions in the rankings are often very small (italics added). This is conservative and a little misleading. The rankings referred to are the positioning of different departments or functional areas according to the percentage of available pages they account for in selected journals. The top 20 schools were presented. Looking at the data for the most recent period for accounting (table 1) less than 1 percent separates the thirteenth to twentieth ranked schools, and the same differentiation holds for the third and twelfth ranked schools. For finance (table 2) less than 1 percent separates the seventh and twentieth ranked schools. In marketing (table 3) less than 1 percent separates the eighth and twentieth ranked schools. In management science and operations research (table 4) less than 1 percent separates sixth and fifteenth (only 15 schools listed) ranked schools. For personnel management and ad-