Analysis of Scales

Chapter 12 is concerned with the statistical properties of multiitem scales. A distinguishing characteristic of relevant analyses is that items are typically quite unreliable or “noisy” in the sense of containing considerable measurement error. The situation is therefore quite different from what was considered in the discussion of multiple regression—an important but contrasting model which assumed that the predictors were reliable. As was noted in the earlier discussion, small amounts of measurement error would not seriously impair the use of the regression model, but could produce spurious results when the predictors were highly unreliable.