DarknessDeku wrote:

. I agree, this was a good test. The only thing thing it needed was an extra option in between agree and disagree, something like no opinion or mixed feelings.

Exactly. That's what was bugging me about it, I just didn't realize it.

Syd Lexia wrote:

I took it again, because when I took it earlier on my phone, I couldn't save the graph. This time, I ended up slightly more to the right than before. And went from -0.67 to +0.31 on the social scale. This is one of the inherent flaws of the test. The questions are worded in such a way, you are unlikely to get the same score twice even though your basic beliefs haven't changed.

Although I agree with the basic point of what you're saying, isn't it kind of unreasonable to expect a test where you get the same score every time? Just because your beliefs haven't changed doesn't mean you'll end up with the exact same score. Its rather human nature to waffle a little bit--I know there were some questions I was a little unsure as to the degree of agreement/disagreement I wanted to assign, and if I took it again I might end up with the other one. Its enough to affect your raw score sure, but not the overall snapshot of where you tend to be politically. Sort of like if I take the SAT I'm probably not going to get exactly the same score every time, even if its the exact same test; but it will always show the essential fact that I'm good at English and really, really suck at math.

That's not to say its a great or even particularly good test (lack of a middle ground answer really does hurt it, and although I didn't notice it at the time I acknowledge what people are saying about the racist-leaning questions), but I'm not sure if I agree that that particular flaw is a dealbreaker.

Kubo wrote:

SoldierHawk wrote: Syd Lexia wrote: I took it again, because when I took it earlier on my phone, I couldn't save the graph. This time, I ended up slightly more to the right than before. And went from -0.67 to +0.31 on the social scale. This is one of the inherent flaws of the test. The questions are worded in such a way, you are unlikely to get the same score twice even though your basic beliefs haven't changed. Although I agree with the basic point of what you're saying, isn't it kind of unreasonable to expect a test where you get the same score every time? Just because your beliefs haven't changed doesn't mean you'll end up with the exact same score. Its rather human nature to waffle a little bit--I know there were some questions I was a little unsure as to the degree of agreement/disagreement I wanted to assign, and if I took it again I might end up with the other one. Its enough to affect your raw score sure, but not the overall snapshot of where you tend to be politically. Sort of like if I take the SAT I'm probably not going to get exactly the same score every time, even if its the exact same test; but it will always show the essential fact that I'm good at English and really, really suck at math. That's not to say its a great or even particularly good test (lack of a middle ground answer really does hurt it, and although I didn't notice it at the time I acknowledge what people are saying about the racist-leaning questions), but I'm not sure if I agree that that particular flaw is a dealbreaker. Syd would have to take it a few more times to get a good indication. You can't really tell with an n of 2. But if that variance holds up (i.e. he response sets don't turn into a bell curve and his responses remain something like 15% different), there's something fundamentally flawed with the test.

Since, as previously mentioned, I suck hardcore at math and don't know a bell curve from a belfry, I'll take your word for it. If what you said translates into "basically the variation is too large for it to be a decent test", that makes sense. Thanks for clearing that up.