Cronbach alpha & semantic differential

[shoaib ul-haq]

Hello All,

I am a novice user of SPSS and I want to ask the
following questions.

1. How can I code a question asked on semantic
differential scale? For example, the question is

The customer care representative was...
Very Much  Somewhat Neither Somewhat Very Much
   (1)       (2)     (3)      (4)       (5)

Helpful                                 Unhelpful
Friendly                                Unfriendly
Polite                                  rude

How should I enter the output of question like the
above in the data editor.

2. I suspect that some of my students have filled the
questionnaires by themselves instead of going to other
people. How can I detect it in SPSS. Will calculating
Cronbach alpha help?

3. If value of Cronbach alpha for likert scale item
questions is 0.90, can I say that the data is
tempered, since it is too repetitious?

Thanks a lot for your help.

Regards
Shoaib











____________________________________________________________________________________Got a little couch potato?
Check out fun summer activities for kids.
http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=oni_on_mail&p=summer+activities+for+kids&cs=bz

[Björn Türoque]

Shoaib,

You can't get SPSS to detect if students are cheating, and not filling out
surveys correctly, but with some deception on your part and a few clever
stats tricks you can make them think you can find the surveys they cheated
on and hopefully those who did cheat within the class to confess.

The procedure you would have to follow is a bit complicated but should work
for the most part, first divide the class in to 2 halves and have every
student create a sheet with the results of maybe 100 to 200 coin tosses.
Have one half make fake results, and have the other half actually do it with
a coin.

Upon examining the results you should be able to pick out the random tosses
done by a coin and the non-random human created results, because people do
not often have long strings of 5, 6, 7 or 8 heads or tails in a row. Theese
long runs of one particular type are likely to happen if you have a large
enough sample of flips the papers done with actual coins will most likely
have theese runs.

An internet article on theese runs is here:
http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=774249

Once you have shown the class that you are reliably able to pick out human
data from real random data, state that you know some students cheated, and
that you will give them the opportunity to redo their work, if they confess.


Ask everyone to take out a piece of paper and write down their name and if
they cheated or not, and the numbers of the surveys they submitted, (so
these ones can be removed from the data) have the students fold the paper in
half and pass it up. With any luck, and some good acting skills, you'll
probably catch a good proportion of your cheaters.

I saw the coin trick successfully executed in one of my stats classes, and
it does work about 90% of the time, just enough for you to decieve the
students. Additionally, I have TAed a class where the professor caught 2
people cheating on papers, and allowed students who confessed to cheating,
through the folded paper method to redo their work. Interestingly 4
students in the class confessed to cheating on their papers. Cheating is
rampant among undergrads these days, so a little deception on your part
won't be too horrible.

I am sorry if my ramblings are not as coherent as they could be, I'm
shooting from the hip here, and trying to get this out quickly. Let me and
the list know how this works in your class, some other professors might
start using this method if it is successful.

Don



On 5/29/07, shoaib ul-haq <[hidden email]> wrote:

>
> Hello All,
>
> I am a novice user of SPSS and I want to ask the
> following questions.
>
> 1. How can I code a question asked on semantic
> differential scale? For example, the question is
>
> The customer care representative was...
> Very Much  Somewhat Neither Somewhat Very Much
>   (1)       (2)     (3)      (4)       (5)
>
> Helpful                                 Unhelpful
> Friendly                                Unfriendly
> Polite                                  rude
>
> How should I enter the output of question like the
> above in the data editor.
>
> 2. I suspect that some of my students have filled the
> questionnaires by themselves instead of going to other
> people. How can I detect it in SPSS. Will calculating
> Cronbach alpha help?
>
> 3. If value of Cronbach alpha for likert scale item
> questions is 0.90, can I say that the data is
> tempered, since it is too repetitious?
>
> Thanks a lot for your help.
>
> Regards
> Shoaib
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ____________________________________________________________________________________Got
> a little couch potato?
> Check out fun summer activities for kids.
>
> http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=oni_on_mail&p=summer+activities+for+kids&cs=bz
>