Grammatical Redundancy in Scales

Abstract

As theoretical models become more complex, there is more pressure to use less time-consuming methods generally, and shorter scales specifically. Although reliability is related to scale length, reliability cutoffs are easily met, even in very short scales, by writing or selecting items that are worded in nearly identical ways, i.e., grammatical redundancy. However, grammatical redundancy increases reliability at the cost of domain sampling - a crucial early step in scale construction and one of the two pillars of content validity. Without it, a scale cannot capture the intended construct. The purpose of this paper is to provide scale developers (and shorteners) with a process for quantifying, identifying, and reducing grammatical redundancy without compromising conceptual redundancy, a process that we label ConGRe. Our process involves indices from the linguistics literature that can be used to guide decisions during item writing, i.e., prior to data collection. We examine their relation to more traditional psychometric indicators and provide a set of benchmarks. Overall, we demonstrate that it is possible to reduce grammatical redundancy, thus avoiding scale deficiency, without sacrificing traditional psychometric properties.

Presented by

Jose M. Cortina is a Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship in the School of Business at Virginia Commonwealth University. He is a past Editor of Organizational Research Methods and Associate Editor of the Journal of Applied Psychology. Dr. Cortina was honored by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology with the 2001 Distinguished Early Career Contributions Award, by the Research Methods Division of AOM with the 2004 Best Paper Award, by the ORM Editorial Board with the 2012 and 2017 Best Paper Awards, and by the Academy of Management Review Editorial Board with the 2020 Best Paper Award. He was honored by GMU with a 2010 Teaching Excellence Award and by SIOP with the 2011 Distinguished Teaching Award. In 2023 he was honored by VCU with the Internationally Recognized Scholar Award. Dr. Cortina served as President of SIOP in 2015. In 2020, he was honored by the Research Methods Division of AOM with the Distinguished Career Award. Among his current research interests are the improvement of research methods in the organizational sciences and the use of promotions as a performance management tool.