Since all of the items in your data set are dichotomous (0,1), and the total score is the sum of these dichotomous items (having a characteristic of a continuous variable - provided the number of items is large), the SPSS procedure for the standard Pearson correlation of each item to the total score will be a point-biserial. This is very common in testing as an a measure (or index) of item discrimination.

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-----Original Message----- From: abdalla alsmadi [mailto:alsmadi@MUTAH.EDU.JO] Sent: Tuesday, April 11, 2000 1:24 PM To: SPSSX-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: point-biserial

Hi evrybody I have 75 binary items(0,1), and a Total score. I need to compute the point biserial for each item, I couldn't figure it out, is it because I have the student version of spss???? can you help? Thanks Abdalla Alsmadi,Ph.D Dep.of Psychology, College of Educational Sciences p.o.Box 7 M'utah University - Karak - JORDAN