APPLYING ITEM RESPONSE THEORY TO IDENTIFY RESPONDENTS’ TENDENCY TO CHOOSE MIDDLE OPTION ON PSYCHOLOGY SCALE

Abstract

The question of how large the proportion of respondents who tend to choose the middle option on
personality scale was difficult to answer since it depends on two factors: respondents themselves and
items. Due to recent development of psychometric theory, this question can be answered by combining
such factors into one model. One of the representative models which can facilitate this combination is
Mixed Rasch Modeling (MRM). This study applied this model to identify respondents’ tendency to
choose the middle option on the psychological scale. The research data obtained from measurements of
the five personality factors in 200 students. Analysis result which was performed separately on each
personality factors suggest that proportion of respondents who chose the middle option is quite small
and only occurs on two personality factors (27 percent in extroversion and 11 percent on openness
factor). Additional finding showed that respondents who have a tendency to choose the middle option
only perform in certain items than all items.