Has anyone information on this topic that can share or is currently working in this subject, please.
Hello Ana,
The usual rationale for reverse items is to avoid response sets such as acquiescense effect. As well, reverse items may sometimes be used as part of "validity" or "lie" scale indicators within a questionnaire.
Are they essential? No.
Do they sometimes mislead respondents, especially those who respond too hastily? Yes.
Good luck with your work.
Lots of issues on this. Often it is useful to include an extra (correlated) factor for reverse worded items. Here are a couple of references.
Marsh H. W. (1996). Positive and negative global self-esteem: a substantively meaningful distinction or artifactors?. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(4), 810–819. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.70.4.810
Weems, G. H., Onwuegbuzie, A. J., & Lustig, D. (2003). Profiles of respondents who respond inconsistently to positively-and negatively-worded items on rating scales. Evaluation & Research in Education, 17(1), 45-60. https://doi.org/10.1080/14664200308668290
Wong, N., Rindfleisch, A., & Burroughs, J. E. (2003). Do reverse-worded items confound measures in cross-cultural consumer research? The case of the material values scale. Journal of Consumer Research, 30(1), 72-91. https://doi.org/10.1086/374697
Woods, C. M. (2006). Careless responding to reverse-worded items: Implications for confirmatory factory analysis. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 28(3), 189-194. doi:10.1007/s10862-005-9004-7
Thank you David Morse and Daniel Wright for your insights and references. Let's see what the biblio and data analysis shows.
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