An Analysis of U-Value as a Measure of Variability
- Publisher:
- Springer
- Publication Type:
- Journal Article
- Citation:
- The Psychological Record: a quarterly journal in theoretical and experimental psychology, 2017, 67, (4), pp. 581-586
- Issue Date:
- 2017-12-01
Closed Access
| Filename | Description | Size | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| An_Analysis_of_U-Value_as_a_Me.pdf | 522.6 kB |
Copyright Clearance Process
- Recently Added
- In Progress
- Closed Access
This item is closed access and not available.
The variability in behavior has frequently been assessed using a measure known as the U-value. Of concern in this article were the limits and constraints on U-value as a measure of variability. The relation between the U-value and aspects of variability was examined using three sets of simulated data. Our analysis demonstrates that the U-value as a measure of variability on its own fails to capture repetitive patterns in the sequence of responding. The U-value was shown to reflect the evenness of the distributions of responses across the categories/options used; however, when the number of categories actually used by the participant differed from the total number available, the relation between U-values and the number of categories allocated with responses was shown to be nonlinear. It was also shown that the same value of U can represent different levels of evenness in response distributions over categories, depending on the number of categories/options actually used. These constraints and limitations are discussed in relation to how researchers might report on behavioral variability.
Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: