Establishing Psychometric Equilibrium: The Balance Puzzle Revised

Abstract

The Balance Puzzle is a widely used assessment of proportional reasoning in adolescents and young adults (Linn & Pulos, 1980; 1983a; 1983b; Linn & Swiney, 1981). A primary feature of the task is that it permits identification of strategy use through the incorporation of foils in each of the response choices which accompany the thirteen items of the task. Previous research (Greene, 1986), however, indicated that the proportional reasoning strategies described by Linn and Pulos (1980; 1983) are only inconsistently reflected across item response choices. This paper reports the findings obtained using a revised version of the Balance Puzzle task which corrected these problems in strategy reflection. Two hundred ninety four male and female college students participated in the study. As in previous research (Greene, 1986; in press) no significant sex differences in proportional reasoning or volume conservation were obtained. MANOVA analysis revealed significantly higher total item and strategy use scores on the original than on the revised version of the task. Complementarily, internal consistency reliability, as measured by Cronbach's alpha was higher on the revised than on the original version of the task. Taken together, the findings demonstrate the significant improvements in test discrimination and reliability associated with the revised Balance Puzzle.

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