IF-THEN METHOD - international version - [page 8]
CONSISTENCY AND UNCERTAINTY
Besides these nine values of percentages shown in the lower part of Figure 6, the important parts in
the figure are the two values for "consistency" (C) and "uncertainty" (U), shown in the middle of the
figure. Cconsistency refers to a kind of reliability for the subject's responses for each series.
As mentioned before, each series consists of 16 tasks. The respective 16 tasks between the pro series
and the post series corresponds to each other. This means that also the 128 arrays of the detection
corresponds to each other in both series. Therefore, we can check on the correspondent relationships
between the respective motive components detected from each series. The "consistency" is the value of
percentage with respect to the correspondence among the 128 motive components detected, respectively,
in the both series. When the results shows a high consistency (such as 100%), it means that the sub-
ject's response tendency would be stable through both series. If the subject responds randomly, the
value of consistency would be near zero. Therefore, this consistency would be used as an index of the
"randomness" involved in the subject's response tendency.
The "uncertainty" (U) is a kind of the measure of information used in information theory. This is an
index concerning the distribution of the nine motive components in the detection processes. When only
one motive component is detected in both series all the way through, the value of uncertainty would be
zero. When several components are detected, the value of uncertainty would be low. If the subject
responds randomly, the uncertainty would be fairly near to 1.00 because almost nine components would be
detectd with fairly similar values. Experiencially, we can find frequently that low consistency intro-
duces high uncertainty, and vice versa. However, this does not mean that the concept of "uncertainty"
is some reverse index of "consistency". For example, suppose a subject responds to several tasks with
a social motive consistently and responds to other tasks with a different motive consistently in both
series. In this case, the uncertainty has fairly high value, though the consistency has the possibil-
ity of taking a fairly high value, sometimes even 100 %. However, the value of consistency would be
always high when the uncertainty has a fairly low value, even when near zero. Anyway, these two indi-
ces are sometimes effective and useful in order to interpret the meaning of the structure of a sub-
ject's responses.
CONSTRUCTION OF THE TEST
CONSTRUCTION OF TASK SERIES
This test has a task series which consists of 32 tasks. This series is structurally divided into
two parts, namely, the "pro series", and "post series" (pro. and post., respectively, in Figure 4) as men
tioned before. These two parts are given to the subjects participating in the test as a continuous
series containing 32 tasks. In the detection process in this test, the subject's responses are first
analyzed for each series. Next, the averages of the components for each series are calculated. Also
the "consistency" and the "uncertainty" are calculated.
TYPES OF PROBLEM
Four types of the task series are prepared in the "IF-THEN method". These four types. Type 1. Type
2. Type 3 and Type 4 (as shown in the APPENDICES) are functionally and structurally identical to each
other, except for the order of appearances for the 16 tasks in each series (pro series and post series).
These different four types are prepared, for example, for the repetitive performance of the test or
for use in a crowded classroom.
COMPUTER PROGRAMS FOR ANALYSES
In order to analyze the data gained in the test some personal computer usually is used. The com-
puter program is fundamentally written in FORTRAN. The sort of the computers which could be used for
these analyses are the "IBM PC and the "NEC 9801 series". At the present stage, the available floppy
discs prepared for these analyses are as follows: viz., 1) 2HD 3.5" (1. 44 MB), 2) 2DD 3.5" (720 KB),
3) 2HD 5.0" (1.20 MB), 4) 2DD 5.0"(720 KB) for the "IBM PC" and 5) 2HD 5.0" (2.0 MB) and 6) 2HD 3.5"
(2.0 MB) for the "NEC 9801 series".
