Separating truth from error: A closer look at the effect of grouped versus intermixed questionnaire format

L. L. Zhang () and J.-L. Farh
Additional contact information
L. L. Zhang: University of Macau
J.-L. Farh: China Europe International Business School

Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 2019, vol. 36, issue 3, No 12, 901 pages

Abstract: Abstract A topic of ongoing debate in survey research is whether items measuring different constructs should be grouped by construct or intermixed. Previous researchers have failed to reach a consensus on whether grouping or intermixing measurement items leads to better construct validity. The inconsistency of their findings has to a large extent resulted from a tendency to confound true variance and systematic error variance. Drawing on measurement and cognitive theories, we propose that for established measures with satisfactory psychometric properties, grouped items capture less unsystematic and systematic error variance and more true variance than their intermixed counterparts. This argument is supported by the findings of a field experiment with 853 students in 142 project teams, who reported their teams’ relationship and task conflict on grouped and intermixed items. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings for researchers who use survey instruments are discussed.

Keywords: Grouping items; Intermixing items; True variance; Error variance; Knowledge accessibility; Knowledge applicability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10490-018-9586-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:asiapa:v:36:y:2019:i:3:d:10.1007_s10490-018-9586-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... 29/journal/10490/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10490-018-9586-8

Access Statistics for this article

Asia Pacific Journal of Management is currently edited by Jane Lu

More articles in Asia Pacific Journal of Management from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().