NBU-COGS: Preparatory Program: Course Description

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Course Description

PSY201 Psychological Scaling

Aims:
- to introduce the theoretical background of psychological measurement
- to give a comprehensive study of different methods of unidimensional and mul-tidimensional scaling
- to focus on fundamental concepts in Coombs' theory of data
- to raise students' awareness of the relationship between psychological scaling and quantitative judgment in everyday life

Objectives:
On completion of the course students should be able to:
- demonstrate knowledge of fundamental principles of psychological measurement
- define the kind of measurement and the type of scale in different psychological and measurement procedures
- define the kind of data, obtained as a result of different instructions in scaling procedures
- demonstrate acquired skills in the practical application of basic psychological scaling methods
- demonstrate familiarity with software products for scaling and analyzing data

Learning strategies:
Lectures focusing on key issues and problems, using software packages for scaling, designing, and conducting of scaling experiments

Overall duration and format:
A one semester (15 weeks) course with 2 hours lectures and seminars and one hour experimental work.

Credit hours: 2.

Lecturer: Prof. Encho Gerganov.

Literature:
Torgerson, W. (1959),
Coombs, C.H. (1964),
Guilford, J.P. (1954),
Gerganov, E. (1976),

Course outline:
The course consists of:
- Psychological scaling – fundamental concepts
- Preference choice data
- Single stimulus data
- Stimulus comparison data
- Similarity data

Main Topics:

Topic 1: The nature of measurement. Types of scales.

Topic 2: Psychological background of human scalability judgements. The scope of Coomb's theory of data. The four types of data as source of psycho-logical scaling.

Topic 3: Preference choice data – joint continuum and joint space. Methods of collecting preference choice data: method of rank order, paired com-parisons. Unidimensional and multidimensional unfolding techniques in the conceptual framework of the deterministic model.

Topic 4: Seminar – Learning to apply software for computer-based analysis of preference choice data. Nishisato's DUAL SCALING. Module CATEGORIES of SPSS.

Topic 5: Single stimulus data. Items and scale values of items. Item operating characteristics.

Topic 6: Deterministic unidimensional models. Theory of scalogram analysis. Analytical procedures – triangular analysis.

Topic 7: Probabilistic unidimensional models. Basic ideas of item response the-ory. Rash models and threeparametric IRT models.

Topic 8: Deterministic multidimensional models. The conjuctive-disjunctive model. The compensatory model

Topic 9: The law of categorical judegment. Methods of successive intervals. Methods of equal-appearing intervals.

Topic 10: Seminar – Learning to apply software in scaling procedures on the basis of single stimulus data. TESTAT module in the SYSTAT pack-age. Module SUCCESSIVE CATEGORIES from DUAL SCALING.

Topic 11: Stimulus comparison data. The law of comparative judgements. Method of paired comparisons.

Topic 12: Seminar – Practice in PAIRED COMPARISONS module of DUAL SCALING.

Topic 13: Similarity data. Theory of multidimensional scaling. Methods for col-lecting similarity data – similarity judgements, confusability matrices, free association data.

Topic 14: Seminar – Practice in the module of MDS of the SYSTAT package.

Topic 15: Relationship between different kinds of data and methods of collecting data.

Assessment:
Students' knowledge is evaluated through:
- homework assignment – designing and conducting an experiment, applying psychological scaling methods computer skills in using scaling software packages
- multiple choice test
- Grading procedures:
- experimental study – 60%
- multiple choice test – 40%

Prerequisites:
Course COG202 "Introduction to Probability Theory and Applied Statistics"is required.
PSY203 and PSY462 Principles of Test Construction and Evaluation.