Discuss three types of response bias. Give examples.

What will be an ideal response?

• Social desirability is the tendency of some test takers to provide or choose answers that are socially acceptable or that present themselves in a favorable light.

• Developers try to balance the social desirability of the correct response and the distracters in multiple choice questions. When using the forced choice format, developers can pair responses based on their desirability.

• The Crowne Marlow Social Desirability Scale designed in 1960, still used in research today, became the accepted operationalization of the social desirability response set.

• Another response set familiar to test developers is acquiescence, the tendency to agree with any ideas or behaviors presented.

• Acquiescence response set may have a cultural basis as well as being an individual inclination.

• Test and survey developers should balance items for which the correct response would be positive with an equal number of items for which the correct response would be negative.

• Sometimes test takers are unwilling or unable to respond to test items accurately. In this case, they may engage in random responding—responding to items in a random fashion by marking answers without reading or considering them.

• This response set is likely to occur when test takers lack the necessary skills (such as reading) to take the test, do not wish to be evaluated, or lack the attention span necessary to complete the task.

• Rather than prevention, some test developers include special items in the test to detect which test takers are giving dishonest answers. These items are scored separately from the test, and test developers refer to them as faking scales or validity scales. A high score on a faking scale identifies test takers who are uncooperative, responding randomly, or faking.