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Estimating the Reliability of Interview Data

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2025

Joseph L. Fleiss*
Affiliation:
Biometrics Research, New York State Department of Mental Hygiene, and Columbia University

Abstract

A model for a score based on an interview is presented which identifies the effect due to the subject, to the manner in which the interviewer tends to conduct his interviews, to the criteria he tends to use in scoring subjects' responses, to the compromises he tends to adopt between the demands of interviewing and those of scoring, and to chance errors. A suggested experimental design calls for each of K investigators to interview a different sample of N subjects, but for all investigators to score each subject. The drawing of inferences when interest is only in the K participants in the reliability study is considered, and a numerical example is given.

Type
Original Paper
Copyright
Copyright © 1970 The Psychometric Society

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Footnotes

*

This work was supported in part by grant DE R01 00793 from the National Institute of Dental Research, and in part by grants MH 08534 and MH 09191 from the National Institute of Mental Health, and forms part of the author's Ph.D. dissertation at Columbia University. The guidance provided by Professor T. W. Anderson is gratefully acknowledged.

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