From the Publisher
Today more than ever, diverse disciplines from psychology to law use questionnaires, rating scales, and personality inventories to achieve a variety of goals. This book provides detailed, hands-on coverage of the construction, administration, scoring, and interpretation of questionnaires, psychological inventories, and population surveys. Companion volume to Rating Scales and Checklists: Evaluating Behavior, Personality, and Attitudes, it includes helpful chapter-end summaries, bibliographies, quizzes, and practice exercises, plus a computer disk that details how to design and construct questionnaires and inventories.
From the Inside Flap
Questionnaires & Inventories The use of questionnaires and inventories as a means of obtaining useful information about populations, individuals, products, and events has existed since the nineteenth century. But it wasn’t until the twentieth century and the development of modern statistical methods, and, more recently, the advent of digital technology that they came to be considered indispensable tools in a wide range of fields, including the behavioral and social sciences, education, health, and business. Questionnaires and Inventories is written for researchers and practitioners in the above-mentioned disciplines and for all others who rely upon these important tools-of-the-trade. Written by a well-known authority in the field, it is a complete, how-to guide to the construction, administration, analysis, and interpretation of all types of questionnaires and inventories. After a concise review of the historical origins and theoretical underpinnings of assessment tools and rating scales, Dr. Aiken presents chapters providing detailed, hands-on coverage of the construction, administration, scoring, and interpretation of questionnaires, psychological inventories, and population surveys. Following chapters feature in-depth discussions of the statistical analysis of data, as well as test reliability and validity. The final two chapters are devoted to the critical assessment of most commercially available questionnaires and inventories. Questionnaires and Inventories includes many features designed to help readers quickly master the skills they need to construct their own assessment tools, including helpful chapter-end summaries, bibliographies, quizzes, and practice exercises. Perhaps the most valuable didactic tool is the diskette, which contains a power-house of programs that readers will find invaluable in designing, constructing, administering, scoring, and evaluating all types of questionnaires and inventories. Questionnaires and Inventories is an indispensable tool for practitioners in the behavioral and social sciences, as well as for market research professionals, attitude and product researchers, and political pollsters. It is also an excellent supplemental text for upper-level graduate courses in psychology, education, sociology, health studies, political science, and other disciplines.
