Adaptation and validation of the Compliance with Standard Precautions Scale amongst nurses in Turkey

AIMS

To adapt and psychometrically test the Compliance with Standard Precautions Scale for use by Turkish nurses.

BACKGROUND

Measurement of standard precautions compliance is important to manage the safety of both patients and health care teams.

METHODS

This two-phase methodological study employed a correlational design with repeated measures. In phase one, the scale's adaptation, including translation, semantic equivalence, content and face validity, was implemented. In phase two, internal consistency and stability were used to examine the reliability of the scale. Construct validity was tested using the Rasch rating scale model. This study was conducted by recruiting 411 nurses from three different hospitals between September 2015 and September 2016.

RESULTS

Adaptation results showed that the Turkish version of the Compliance with Standard Precautions Scale (CSPS-T) is adequate for linguistic and content validation. The content validity index and comprehensibility of the scale were similarly satisfactory. The reliability of the CSPS-T was examined by Cronbach's alpha, corrected item-total correlations and intraclass correlation coefficient, and good results were obtained. The Rasch model showed that all items were compatible with the model. Whereas Item 4 was the most difficult, Item 10 was the easiest.

CONCLUSION

The CSPS-T is a reliable and valid tool for assessing compliance with standard precautions amongst Turkish nurses.

Conjoint measurement underdone: Comment on Günter Trendler (2019)

Trendler’s (2019) critique of conjoint measurement fails because he neglects to distinguish standard sequences (human constructions) from series of equal magnitudes (features of quantitative structures). The latter, not the former, is presumed in conjoint measurement. Furthermore, in so far as some mental tests use humans as measuring instruments, the only questionable assumption involved is that the relevant psychological attributes are quantitative, and that assumption is potentially testable using conjoint measurement. Finally, contrary to Trendler, psychological phenomena can be captured and the structure of psychological attributes investigated using conjoint measurement.

Quantitative Data From Rating Scales: An Epistemological and Methodological Enquiry

Rating scales are popular methods for generating quantitative data directly by persons rather than automated technologies. But scholars increasingly challenge their foundations. This article contributes epistemological and methodological analyses of the processes involved in person-generated quantification. They are crucial for measurement because data analyses can reveal information about study phenomena only if relevant properties were encoded systematically in the data. The Transdisciplinary Philosophy-of-Science Paradigm for Research on Individuals (TPS-Paradigm) is applied to explore psychological and social-science concepts of measurement and quantification, including representational measurement theory, psychometric theories and their precursors in psychophysics. These are compared to theories from metrology specifying object-dependence of measurement processes and subject-independence of outcomes as key criteria, which allow tracing data to the instances measured and the ways they were quantified. Separate histories notwithstanding, the article's basic premise is that general principles of scientific measurement and quantification should apply to all sciences. It elaborates principles by which these metrological criteria can be implemented also in psychology and social sciences, while considering their research objects' peculiarities. Application of these principles is illustrated by quantifications of individual-specific behaviors ('personality'). The demands rating methods impose on data-generating persons are deconstructed and compared with the demands involved in other quantitative methods (e.g., ethological observations). These analyses highlight problematic requirements for raters. Rating methods sufficiently specify neither the empirical study phenomena nor the symbolic systems used as data nor rules of assignment between them. Instead, pronounced individual differences in raters' interpretation and use of items and scales indicate considerable subjectivity in data generation. Together with recoding scale categories into numbers, this introduces a twofold break in the traceability of rating data, compromising interpretability of findings. These insights question common reliability and validity concepts for ratings and provide novel explanations for replicability problems. Specifically, rating methods standardize only data formats but not the actual data generation. Measurement requires data generation processes to be adapted to the study phenomena's properties and the measurement-executing persons' abilities and interpretations, rather than to numerical outcome formats facilitating statistical analyses. Researchers must finally investigate how people actually generate ratings to specify the representational systems underlying rating data.

On substandard substantive theory and axing axioms of measurement: A response to Humphry

My response to Humphry begins with some reflections upon why it is that after more than a century, psychometrics still lacks plausible substantive theories underwriting its claims to measure mental attributes and I explore the possibility that it is more myth-based technology than science. Historically, psychometrics has lacked any interest in coming to grips scientifically with the logical commitments of the presumption, implicit in the theories it does have (e.g., its Item Response Theories), that the attributes it aspires to measure are continuous quantities. This lack of interest might also explain Humphry’s misunderstanding of what is involved in the measurement theory axiom of continuity and his curious claim to have located a paradox therein. However, his attempt to rule the entire corpus of measurement theory as irrelevant to the enterprise of constructing and investigating substantive, psychometric theories betrays a failure to recognise that the form of substantive, quantitative theories also raises issues requiring empirical investigation.

Psychological measurement: Theory, paradoxes, and prototypes

The article focuses on the ongoing debate regarding the measurement of psychological attributes. The aim is to clarify different uses of the term theory and key points of agreement and disagreement among participants. In addition, the article addresses misinterpretations of key points in recent articles and notes an apparent paradox arising in the representational theory of measurement. Substantive theory is contrasted with both item response theory and the representational theory of measurement. Emphasis is placed on the direct dependence of the measurement of physical attributes on substantive quantitative theory as opposed to any form of separate measurement theory. It is concluded that the primary challenge faced in quantitative psychology is to posit testable substantive theories or laws which form a foundation for measurement.