CONNOTATIVELY CONSISTENT AND REVERSED CONNOTATIVELY INCONSISTENT ITEMS ARE NOT FULLY EQUIVALENT - GENERALIZABILITY STUDY

This article redefines what has been referred to as ''negatively worded items'' in the literature. The new term-''connotatively inconsistent items''-is more nearly accurate because it has a broader base for generalization. Using generalizability theory with a sample of 102 graduate students, the study showed that connotatively consistent and reversed connotatively inconsistent items were not fully equivalent.