Improving ability measurement in surveys by following the principles of IRT: The Wordsum vocabulary test in the General Social Survey

Cor, M. Ken; Haertel, Edward H.; Krosnick, Jon A.; Malhotra, Neil

doi:10.1016/j.ssresearch.2012.05.007

Cited by 40 publications

(26 citation statements)

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“…The presence of opposingly directed trends on different WORDSUM items might even account for the results of studies finding no consistency in secular trends at the level of full-scale WORDSUM scores in GSS waves dating back to the 1970s (Beaujean and Sheng, 2010). These results replicate the findings of other studies on WORDSUM indicating performance declines on harder words, coupled with null-trends or improvements on less difficult ones, both at the level of the GSS survey waves (Bowles et al, 2005; Cor et al, 2012) and also among lexical databases (Haung and Hauser, 1998; Roivainen, 2014). The findings also build on this previous research by showing direct contributions to the decline in frequency among difficult words stemming from genetic selection.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 89%

“…Studies by Bowles et al (2005) and Cor et al (2012) found that WORDSUM words could be grouped into two classes based on difficulty. Both groups of researchers also found that earlier-born cohorts exhibited higher difficult-vocabulary knowledge relative to more recently-born ones, suggesting declining performance with respect to difficult words.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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By their words ye shall know them: Evidence of genetic selection against general intelligence and concurrent environmental enrichment in vocabulary usage since the mid 19th century

2015

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It has been theorized that declines in general intelligence (g) due to genetic selection stemming from the inverse association between completed fertility and IQ and the Flynn effect co-occur, with the effects of the latter being concentrated on less heritable non-g sources of intelligence variance. Evidence for this comes from the observation that 19th century populations were more intellectually productive, and also exhibited faster simple reaction times than modern ones, suggesting greater information-processing ability and therefore higher g. This co-occurrence model is tested via examination of historical changes in the utilization frequencies of words from the highly g-loaded WORDSUM test across 5.9 million texts spanning the period 1850–2005. Consistent with predictions, words with higher difficulties (δ parameters from Item Response Theory) and stronger negative correlations between pass rates and completed fertility declined in use over time whereas less difficult and less strongly selected words, increased in use over time, consistent with a Flynn effect stemming in part from the vocabulary enriching effects of increases in population literacy. These findings persisted when explicitly controlled for word age, changing literacy rates and temporal autocorrelation. These trends constitute compelling evidence for the co-occurrence model.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 89%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

By their words ye shall know them: Evidence of genetic selection against general intelligence and concurrent environmental enrichment in vocabulary usage since the mid 19th century

2015

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“…A short (16-item) vocabulary test, based on the 14-item Wordsumplus, was administered (Cor, Haertel, Krosnick, & Malhotra, 2012) to 205 of the participants. Two of the easiest words on the Wordsumplus were dropped after a pilot study showed that almost all the participants correctly responded to them; four additional difficult items that were not previously on the test were added.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reading ability and print exposure: item response theory analysis of the author recognition test

2014

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In the Author Recognition Test (ART) participants are presented with a series of names and foils and are asked to indicate which ones they recognize as authors. The test is a strong predictor of reading skill, with this predictive ability generally explained as occurring because author knowledge is likely acquired through reading or other forms of print exposure. This large-scale study (1012 college student participants) used Item Response Theory (IRT) to analyze item (author) characteristics to facilitate identification of the determinants of item difficulty, provide a basis for further test development, and to optimize scoring of the ART. Factor analysis suggests a potential two factor structure of the ART differentiating between literary vs. popular authors. Effective and ineffective author names were identified so as to facilitate future revisions of the ART. Analyses showed that the ART is a highly significant predictor of time spent encoding words as measured using eye-tracking during reading. The relationship between the ART and time spent reading provided a basis for implementing a higher penalty for selecting foils, rather than the standard method of ART scoring (names selected minus foils selected). The findings provide novel support for the view that the ART is a valid indicator of reading volume. Further, they show that frequency data can be used to select items of appropriate difficulty and that frequency data from corpora based on particular time periods and types of text may allow test adaptation for different populations.

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“…We also asked 10 vocabulary questions to measure intelligence based on the General Social Survey Wordsum Vocabulary Test (see Cor, Haertel, Krosnick, & Malhotra, 2012). These questions required respondents to choose the correct meaning of a word from five options.…”

Section: Status-related Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why do people play violent video games? Demographic, status-related, and mating-related correlates in men and women

Kasumovic

Dixson

Denson

2015

Personality and Individual Differences

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Improving ability measurement in surveys by following the principles of IRT: The Wordsum vocabulary test in the General Social Survey

Cited by 40 publications

References 3 publications

By their words ye shall know them: Evidence of genetic selection against general intelligence and concurrent environmental enrichment in vocabulary usage since the mid 19th century

By their words ye shall know them: Evidence of genetic selection against general intelligence and concurrent environmental enrichment in vocabulary usage since the mid 19th century

Reading ability and print exposure: item response theory analysis of the author recognition test

Why do people play violent video games? Demographic, status-related, and mating-related correlates in men and women

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