Keywords

Psychometrics Pragmatics Meaning Think-aloud Validation Implied

Abstract

Current psychometric best practice emphasizes the importance of semantics and syntax, two of the three cores of linguistics, which addresses the assigned meaning associated with words. However, little attention is paid to the other core linguistics subfield: pragmatics, or the study of how context affects meaning. The present study integrates pragmatic theory with psychometric practices (i.e., definitional correspondence) to investigate the existence of implied meaning associated with items and definitions. Specifically, definitions and items associated with knowledge hiding, forgiveness of others, resilience, presenteeism, and both global and facet job satisfaction were investigated for implied meaning. A modified qualitative think-aloud protocol and a survey on Prolific were conducted to explore the existence and potential impact of implied meaning in items and definitions. Evidence from these two studies suggests that not only does implied meaning exist in survey takers’ interpretations of items and definitions, but also that interpretations of items and definitions for the same construct are not always aligned. In fact, implied meaning associated with items can contaminate the underlying content domain, thus contributing to inconsistent results associated with the use of a given measure. These findings highlight the importance of assessing implied meaning as part of the construct explication phase and measure development, which can help to produce higher quality psychological measures that align more closely with the intended content domain. Future directions for psychometric assessment and the theoretical treatment of context in I-O topics are discussed.

Completion Date

2024

Semester

Summer

Committee Chair

LeNoble, Chelsea

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

College

College of Sciences

Department

Psychology

Degree Program

Industrial & Organizational Psychology

Format

application/pdf

Release Date

8-15-2029

Length of Campus-only Access

5 years

Access Status

Doctoral Dissertation (Campus-only Access)

Campus Location

Orlando (Main) Campus

Accessibility Status

Meets minimum standards for ETDs/HUTs

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Restricted to the UCF community until 8-15-2029; it will then be open access.

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