Item synonymization: A method for determining the total meaning of pencil-paper reactions

Items have been studied heretofore for their value as elements of particular tests to the neglect of more fundamental research into the multiple potentiality of items. This article proposes a method of grouping items into synonymies comprising all of the items which correlate with a given key item. These synonymies can be used for interpretation of the total meaning of the key item: (1) by inspection of the constituent items and (2) by correlational study of obtained single scores of individual persons. The method is illustrated by four items with inter- and intra-correlations, and characteristics of an ideal background reservoir of items are pointed out.