Formative v Reflective

[gcam032]

Hi Everyone,

I realise this is a common question, but having read the literature I am still confused as to the nature of my LVs and index variables. Can someone shed some light on it for me please?

I have a survey that asks emotional response questions. These are the indicator variables. So for example I might have 10 emotions where the respondent agrees/disagrees on a 5-point scale. These 10 emotions are 'packaged' into the latent variable.

Is this formative or reflective?

Thanks

[christian.nitzl]

Hey Gareth,

I think it depends on the question how far your items correlate with each other. Therefore you should look at your correlations between your items. Are the correlations high between the items, which dedicated to a latent variable, you have a reflektive measurement and visa versa. If I follow your description I would guess that you have a formative measurement if you asked for different aspects of your latent construct. Maybe it is the case that you have a mix of reflektiv and formative items.
It also exist a statistical test, which is named ‘tetrad’ test. The approach allows distinguishing a formative indicator specification from a reflective indicator. You can download a paper to this topic with following link:

http://www.wedb.net/download/quanti/ind ... in_pls.pdf

You can also use a explorativ factor analyses for some tests (that is only an idea).

Best regards,

Christian

[ruchi]

Dear Professors

I have query regarding two models -
1) the first order reflective -second order formative - In this case how can the single score for construct can be computed if it measured by 3 items in a reflective way?
2)First order formative-second order formative- I have seen papers in which they have computed Mean of the formative items to compute the score of first order formative construct. whats the right way to compute the scores of first order in the two cases.

I will be highly thankful if you can provide me some insights on this.

Thanks
Regards

[ruchi]

Dear Professors

I have query regarding two models -
1) the first order reflective -second order formative - In this case how can the single score for construct can be computed if it measured by 3 items in a reflective way?
2)First order formative-second order formative- I have seen papers in which they have computed Mean of the formative items to compute the score of first order formative construct. whats the right way to compute the scores of first order in the two cases.

I will be highly thankful if you can provide me some insights on this.

Thanks
Regards