The Quantification of Consistency

Abstract

The central concern of this chapter is the identification and measurement of various forms of consistency implicit in the already described structural representation of basic concepts and their specification equation. Before this main topic can be addressed, there must be some preliminary discussion of how observations may be transformed to data amenable to this structural representation. Subsequently, applications of the variance components approach, as described by Endler (1966), will be discussed. Finally, the utility of employing generalizability theory to estimate consistency will be examined. A version of generalizability theory will be introduced and defended as the most appropriate currently available method for assessing consistency in behavior.