Ter Wiel, Michael (2010) Exploring Methods to Establish Convergence Evidence of Construct Validity of Questionnaires. Honours thesis, University of Southern Queensland. (Unpublished)
Abstract
Questionnaires, like other measuring instruments, require a satisfactory validation process in order to be able to substantiate the measurements obtained with certainty and relatedness. Measuring devices are usually calibrated or finetuned by comparing to a standard or another more established instrument with known reliability and validity. Traditionally, most parts of the validation process are conducted favouring correlation coefficients. This thesis explores an alternate method, the Limits of Agreement method by Bland and Altman, to establish convergence evidence of construct validity of questionnaires. Archival data relating to a Queensland Health Better Workplace Staff Opinion Survey conducted in 2009 was used to compare each methods capability of establishing convergence evidence. All of the 1242 participants were part of the Clinical and State-Wide Services workgroup. Four comparison groups, each consisting of one new questionnaire and one established questionnaire from the survey, were used to analyse the two methods in their ability to characterise error. Correlations were shown to be significantly strong in all four comparisons but failed to detect systematic bias. The Limits of Agreement method was able to differentiate significant systematic bias in two of the four comparison groups, namely Comparison 2 and Comparison 4. Random error was shown to be greatest in two comparison groups, namely Comparison 3 and Comparison 4, which consisted of mismatched established and new questionnaires. This study hopes to encourage interest that will result in a greater application of the Limits of Agreement method for questionnaire validation. However, further study is necessary to determine procedures for standardising different scoring scales and addressing issues concerned with proportional bias and repeatability.
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| Item Type: | Thesis (Non-Research) (Honours) |
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| Item Status: | Live Archive |
| Additional Information: | Current UniSQ staff and students can request access to this thesis. Please email research.repository@unisq.edu.au with a subject line of SEAR thesis request and provide: Name of the thesis requested and Your name and UniSQ email address |
| Faculty/School / Institute/Centre: | Historic - Faculty of Sciences - Department of Psychology (Up to 30 Jun 2013) |
| Supervisors: | Goh, Hong Eng |
| Qualification: | Bachelor of Science (Honours) (Psychology) |
| Date Deposited: | 16 Mar 2026 03:23 |
| Last Modified: | 16 Mar 2026 03:23 |
| Fields of Research (2008): | 17 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 1799 Other Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 179999 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences not elsewhere classified |
| Fields of Research (2020): | 52 PSYCHOLOGY > 5299 Other psychology > 529999 Other psychology not elsewhere classified |
| URI: | https://sear.unisq.edu.au/id/eprint/52881 |
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