Prof. Fritz Drasgow (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaing)

In the 1920s, Louis Thurstone asserted "Attitudes Can Be Measured" and developed a procedure based on the idea that people would endorse items that closely reflected their attitude. A few years later, Rensis Likert introduced a simpler approach that relied on item-total correlations: Only items with high item-total correlations were included in a scale. Modern psychometric models reflecting Likert's approach show systematic and replicable misfit. This problem will be described and illustrated for data from personality inventories. In contrast, ideal point models show good fit to personality data. A new personality scale, the Tailored Adaptive Personality Assessment System or TAPAS, will be described. TAPAS is designed to predict job performance and consequently its resistance to faking good is critical. Results from several studies will be summarized.