DEGREE OF REDUNDANCY BETWEEN TIME, IMPORTANCE, AND FREQUENCY TASK RATINGS

Redundancy among relative-time-spent, importance, and frequency task rating scales was examined. Research and development managers (N = 117) from 9 organizations completed a task inventory on all 3 scales. For both job-level and individual data, difference scores were small between time and importance task ratings but were much larger between other pairs of scales. Scale intercorrelations were low to moderate for individual data but quite variable among jobs. The striking difference-score findings remained consistent even among jobs that differed considerably in their scale intercorrelations. It is concluded that time and importance ratings may be redundant and that difference scores may be more diagnostic of redundancy than are correlations.