Significantly skewed items are not a problem.
Very, very skewed items are a problem.
If your items are not significantly skewed, collect more data and they
will be. I don't think any program except SPSS even calculates the SE
of the skew, it's such a useless statistic. Streiner and Norman, in
the book "Health Measurement Scales" suggest that if 80%+ are
responding at one end of the scale, you have a problem, otherwise, it
doesn't matter.
jeremy
On 10 November 2011 07:19, Sandi Dheensa <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Thank you all for your quick responses! :)
> In answer to your question Jeremy, yes I do mean that the skew is
> statistically significant. Thank you for pointing that out...(what a rookie
> mistake for me to make, hahah).
> I'm going to have a go at shifting all of the response options, like in the
> example about the doctor, readministering the questionnaire, and then
> rerunning the analysis...I think this is a legitimate move but if anyone
> else has any words of advice, please let me know! If the items are still
> skewed once I've rewritten them, you'll hear from me again (either by email
> or simply because the sound of my weeping will be audible for miles)
> Sandi
>
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>
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>
> ________________________________
> From: Dan Holman <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Thursday, 10 November 2011, 14:56
> Subject: Re: Scale Construction
>
> Do you have examples of some of the question wordings? Maybe we could think
> of ways to re word them to get a wider range of answers.
> Dan
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