Entrepreneurship attitude: validation of a measurement instrument based on graded response model of the item response theory/Atitude empreendedora: validacao de um instrumento de medida com base no modelo de resposta gradual da teoria da resposta ao item/Actitud empresarial: la validacion de un instrumento de medida con base en el modelo de respuesta graduada de la teoria de respuesta al item

The scale measurement instrument of entrepreneurship attitude (Imae), proposed by Souza and Lopes Jr. (2005), has two dimensions: prospection and innovation, management and persistence. Based on this scale it can be verified validity and interval that the entrepreneurship attitude may be measured, and also to verify its capacity of discriminating the answer that a human being is able to give. The purpose of this paper is to validate the Imae scale through the graded response model of the item response theory (IRT), which revolutionized the theory of measures. The IRT, psychology constructions used in discriminative answer studies, especially in large samples of respondents to a specific phenomenon, consist of mathematical models relating one or more latent traits (unobserved) of an individual with the probability of giving a particular response to an item. The main point of IRT is taking into account the particular item, without revealing the total scores, so the findings do not only depend on the test or questionnaire, but each item that composes it. Two levels of the scale were identified as the main results of this research. They are called anchors that allow interpreting people Entrepreneurship Attitude tendencies and findings that Imae items present good capacity in discriminating the answer that one is able to give, providing quality to those items, and, therefore, validating the Imae scale. This study is important in view of the role that attitude plays in the choices that individuals make about their own lives, helping to determine their own actions. KEYWORDS Attitude; Entrepreneurship attitude; Entrepreneurship; Item response theory; Measurements and methods. A escala instrumento de medida de atitude empreendedora (Imae), desenvolvida por Souza e Lopes Jr. (2005), contem duas dimensoes: prospeccao e inovacao, e gestao e persistencia. Com a finalidade de verificar a validade e o intervalo em que propicia a medida de atitude empreendedora, alem de investigar sua capacidade de discriminar a resposta que o individuo esta apto a dar, o objetivo deste artigo e validar a escala Imae por meio do modelo de resposta gradual da teoria da resposta ao item (TRI), que revolucionou a teoria de medidas. A TRI, construtos da psicologia utilizados em estudos de discriminacao de respostas, em especial em grandes amostras de respondentes a um determinado fenomeno, e constituida de modelos matematicos que relacionam um ou mais tracos latentes (nao observados) de um in