Psychometric culture, measurement

In conclusion, this chapter demonstrates that the IRT approach can provide additional insights to psychometric properties of the HSOPSC. Both, the classical and modem approaches, are needed to form a complete picture of the properties of a set of items. Understanding the basic principles of IRT will hopefully foster its use more widely within the field of patient safety culture assessment. This will ultimately enhance our ability to measure this important constmct accurately. 

As ASCIv2 becomes established as appropriate for cross-cultural use in studies such as these, we hope that this initial study has drawn attention to issues of item interpretation, and we believe that the principles and procedures described here can be useful to others engaged in similar work. For example, further psychometric evidence can be gathered for the international use of ASClv2 in additional cultural contexts. If the problem for any insfrument, such as the one with item 6, persists in multiple contexts, the problem can potentially be addressed by deleting the item from the instrument or by exploring alternative word pairs, with careful attention to the impact on validity of using the item to measure the intended construct. 

Marsh, H. W., Hau, K. T., Artelt, C., Baumert, J., Peschar, J. L. (2006). OECD s brief self-report measure of educational psychology s most useful affective constructs Cross-cultural, psychometric comparisons across 25 countries. International Journal of Testing, 6, 311-360. 

Table 1 summarizes the PbB, other blood chemistry, medical, electrophysiological, psychometric, behavioural and demographic measures collected from participating children and parents. These measures were chosen to provide convergent information from several different perspectives to elaborate more clearly the subtle and complex effects of asymptomatic lead exposure on CNS development. Several tests were selected on the basis of guidelines later adopted at an International Symposium on Neurobehavioral Methodology in Pediatric Lead Research (Cincinnati OH September 1981). These guidelines included (1) use of standardized, age-normed tests with documented validity and reliability when available (2) use of experimental measures to evaluate areas of function for which standardized measures are not available, and (3) use of instruments with cross-cultural comparison data. 

---