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Analysis of rating scales: A pervasive problem in bilingualism research and a solution with Bayesian ordinal models

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2021

João Veríssimo Open the ORCID record for João Veríssimo [Opens in a new window]
João Veríssimo*
Affiliation:
Potsdam Research Institute for Multilingualism, Potsdam, Germany Center of Linguistics, School of Arts and Humanities, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
*
Address for correspondence: João Veríssimo, Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa, Alameda da Universidade, 1600-214 Lisboa, Portugal. E-mail: jlverissimo@edu.ulisboa.pt
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Abstract

Research in bilingualism often involves quantifying constructs of interest by the use of rating scales: for example, to measure language proficiency, dominance, or sentence acceptability. However, ratings are a type of ordinal data, which violates the assumptions of the statistical methods that are commonly used to analyse them. As a result, the validity of ratings is compromised and the ensuing statistical inferences can be seriously distorted. In this article, we describe the problem in detail and demonstrate its pervasiveness in bilingualism research. We then provide examples of how bilingualism researchers can employ an appropriate solution using Bayesian ordinal models. These models respect the inherent discreteness of ratings, easily accommodate non-normality, and allow modelling unequal psychological distances between response categories. As a result, they can provide more valid, accurate, and informative inferences about graded constructs such as language proficiency. Data and code are publicly available in an OSF repository at https://osf.io/grs8x.

Keywords

rating scalesordinal modelsBayesian analysislanguage proficiencyacceptability judgements
Type
Review Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 24 , Issue 5 , November 2021 , pp. 842 - 848
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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