Psychometrics
arnold on Sep 16, 2008
Probably not to relevant of a question these days, but I will answer it anyways.
Bartlett et al (1960) did a study that compared the magnetic board scaling technique to five other popular techniques.
Five Other Scaling Methods:
1. Paired Comparison
2. Ranking Technique
3. Graphic and magnetic board technique
4. Likert
5. Equal appearing intervals
Major Hypothesis: The magnetic board technique scale values would not be significantly different from the values obtained by the other methods.
Conclusions: All the techniques used were equally good measures of scale value. When deciding which technique to use one must go to other criteria such as appeal to subjects. When one wishes to obtain a rating or scale value on the basis of one judge, there does appear to be a slight difference among the techniques. The individual reliability of the paired comparison appears to be the highest. Ranking also seems to be a more reliable technique for scaling by a single judge. If the number of stimuli is not too large to prohibit the use of paired comparison or ranking, they might recommend for individual scaling. If there are a large number of stimuli these two techniques become complicated so the other methods show high reliability for individual scaling. Therefore paired comparison and ranking seem to be slightly superior in terms of reliability.
Reference:
Bartlett, Heerman and Rettig. (1960). “A Comparison of Six Different Scaling Techniques” The Journal of Social Psychology. 51. 343-348.
