Sentence Completion Tests - Data Analysis, Validity and Reliability

Data Analysis, Validity and Reliability

The data collected from sentence completion tests can usually be analyzed either quantitatively or qualitatively. Usually, sentence completion tests can be interpreted in two different ways: subjective-intuitive analysis of the underlying motivations projected in the subject's responses, or objective analysis by means of scores assigned to each completed sentence. Multiple themes can occur in a short test, which gives the examinee multiple opportunities to reveal underlying motivations about each topic during data analysis.Of course, most sentence completion tests are much longer-anywhere from 40 to 100 stems-and contain more themes-anywhere from 4 to 15 topics.

Sentence completion tests usually include some formal coding procedure or manual. The validity of each sentence completion test must be determined independently and this depends on the instructions laid out in the scoring manual.

Compared to positivist instruments, such as Likert-type scales, sentence completion tests tend to have high face validity (i.e., the extent to which measurement items accurately reflect the concept being measured). This is to be expected, because in many cases the sentence stems name or refer to specific objects and the respondent is provides responses specifically focused on such objects.