An Item Response Theory Analysis of the Spiritual Assessment Inventory

Item response theory (IRT) was applied to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Spiritual Assessment Inventory (SAI; Hall & Edwards, 1996 Hall, T. W. and Edwards, K. J. 1996. The initial development and factor analysis of the spiritual assessment inventory. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 24: 233–246. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 2002 Hall, T. W. and Edwards, K. J. 2002. The spiritual assessment inventory: A theistic model and measure for assessing spiritual development. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 41: 341–357. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). The SAI is a 49-item self-report questionnaire designed to assess five aspects of spirituality: Awareness of God, Disappointment (with God), Grandiosity (excessive self-importance), Realistic Acceptance (of God), and Instability (in one's relationship to God). IRT analysis revealed that for several scales: (a) two or three items per scale carry the psychometric workload and (b) measurement precision is peaked for all five scales, such that one end of the scale, and not the other, is measured precisely. We considered how sample homogeneity and the possible quasi-continuous nature of the SAI constructs may have affected our results and, in light of this, made suggestions for SAI revisions, as well as for measuring spirituality, in general.     

The Barrett-Lennard Relationship Inventory (BLRI): current and potential uses with family systems

The search for and measurement of important relationship qualities have always been of interest to family therapists. Within a Rogerian perspective, empathy, regard, and congruence are believed to be among the most important indicators of the quality of human relationships. These variables, or conceptually similar ones, are also important in several current models of family functioning. Barrett-Lennard (1,2) developed an instrument, the Barrett-Lennard Relationship Inventory (BLRI), to measure empathy, regard, and congruence. Although the major use of the BLRI has been in psychotherapy outcome research (13), several studies have shown that it is a sensitive indicator of marital satisfaction and of changes occurring in marital-improvement programs. The present study is a factor analysis of the BLRI based on data from 345 women who rated levels of empathy, regard, and congruence in their relationship with their husbands. The results robustly confirm the three-factor structure of the BLRI in what is believed to be the first factor analysis in the context of a family member rating a relationship within the family. The replication of the BLRI's structure in a new relationship context suggests that the dimensions tapped by the BLRI may have some generality and warrant further exploration in a family-systems context. Several advantages of the BLRI over other currently available instruments are discussed, as are potential uses of the BLRI in systems research beyond the marital unit.     

An Item Analysis of the Adjustment Questionnaire

This study examined the relationship of dogmatism, attitude extremity, and the tendency to displace perceptually a neutral communication to a position more discrepant from the subject's own than it objectively holds. Results indicate that dogmatism was not predictive of displacement tendency, but that extremity and intensity were both significantly related to displacement. It was also found that dogmatism was not correlated with having a conservative attitude on the issues studied. The results were consistent across four different attitude issues.     

应用项目反应理论对瑞文测验联合型的分析

使用BILOG-MG3.0软件,边际极大似然估计,3参数Logistic模型对354名不同能力水平的男性青年的瑞文测验联合型数据进行了分析。结果显示:大多数瑞文测验联合型的题目都适合3参数Logistic模型(有6道题不适合)。整个测验的信息函数峰值的位置在难度量表的-3到-2之间,其值为16.82。共有18道题的信息函数峰值在0.2以下。从区分度来看,72道题目的区分度均大于0.5,比较理想。难度参数显示所有题目均较低,绝大部分都在0以下,最高的只有1.01。题目的难度主要由所需的操作水平决定。伪猜测参数在0.07-0.24之间。综合分析表明瑞文测验联合型对正常青年的智力评价精度较差。     

An Analysis of a Cross-Cultural Personality Inventory: The IPIP Big-Five Factor Markers in Croatia

We investigated the psychometric properties of the Oregon Vocational Interest Scales (ORVIS), a brief public-domain alternative to commercial inventories, in a large community sample and in a college sample. In both samples, we examined the factor structure, scale intercorrelations, and personality correlates of the ORVIS, and in the community sample, we also examined the correlations of the ORVIS scales with cognitive abilities and with the scales of a longer, proprietary interest survey. In both samples, all 8 scales—Leadership, Organization, Altruism, Creativity, Analysis, Producing, Adventuring, and Erudition—showed wide variation in scores, high internal-consistency reliabilities, and a pattern of high convergent and low discriminant correlations with the scales of the proprietary interest survey. Overall, the results support the construct validity of the scales, which are recommended for use in research on vocational interests and other individual differences.     

The Factor Structure of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory: An Alternative View

Wagner and Copper (1963) reported high discriminative power for one score (the ACTivity score) of the Wagner Hand Test between (unskilled and semi-skilled) workers at Goodwill Industries, Akron, Ohio who had been rated “Satisfactory” or “Unsatisfactory” by their superiors.

An attempt to crossvalidate this finding, in a three-group design, in a large Western Canadian Plywood mill failed to produce the expected relationship; neither the ACT score, nor any of the other scores derived from this test showed any consistent trend in terms of postdicting activity level, or general acceptability of the 18 Ss involved in this study.     

A Deep Learning Algorithm for High-Dimensional Exploratory Item Factor Analysis

Psychometrika - Marginal maximum likelihood (MML) estimation is the preferred approach to fitting item response theory models in psychometrics due to the MML estimator’s consistency,...     

A Psychometric Evaluation of the Revised Parental Emotion Regulation Inventory

Despite significant research on parental emotion, parents’ regulation of their own emotions during discipline encounters is an understudied topic. Progress in this area of inquiry would be enhanced by the development of valid measures of emotion regulation. The present article describes an evaluation of such a measure, the revised Parental Emotion Regulation Inventory (PERI2). Mothers of 2-year-old children (N?=?232) completed the PERI2, additional questionnaire measures, and a parent-child observation during home visits. The present findings support the factorial and concurrent validity of the PERI2’s suppression (e.g., concealing negative emotion), capitulation (e.g., giving into aversive child behavior to reduce negative emotion) and escape (e.g., walking away mid discipline encounter to reduce negative emotion) factors. Suppression, capitulation, and escape were distinct but interrelated emotion regulatory behaviors that were associated with such factors as harsh parenting, lax discipline, parental maladjustment, and child physical aggression. In contrast, the psychometric adequacy of the reappraisal factor (e.g., thinking differently about the child’s behavior to reduce negative emotion) was not supported. The results support the future use of the PERI2, minus the reappraisal factor’s items.     

Joint Maximum Likelihood Estimation for High-Dimensional Exploratory Item Factor Analysis

Joint maximum likelihood (JML) estimation is one of the earliest approaches to fitting item response theory (IRT) models. This procedure treats both the item and person parameters as unknown but fixed model parameters and estimates them simultaneously by solving an optimization problem. However, the JML estimator is known to be asymptotically inconsistent for many IRT models, when the sample size goes to infinity and the number of items keeps fixed. Consequently, in the psychometrics literature, this estimator is less preferred to the marginal maximum likelihood (MML) estimator. In this paper, we re-investigate the JML estimator for high-dimensional exploratory item factor analysis, from both statistical and computational perspectives. In particular, we establish a notion of statistical consistency for a constrained JML estimator, under an asymptotic setting that both the numbers of items and people grow to infinity and that many responses may be missing. A parallel computing algorithm is proposed for this estimator that can scale to very large datasets. Via simulation studies, we show that when the dimensionality is high, the proposed estimator yields similar or even better results than those from the MML estimator, but can be obtained computationally much more efficiently. An illustrative real data example is provided based on the revised version of Eysenck’s Personality Questionnaire (EPQ-R).

     

Bandwidth and Fidelity on the NEO-Five Factor Inventory: Replicability and Reliability of Saucier's (1998) Item Cluster Subcomponents

Battered and nonbattered women were administered the Hand Test to determine which psychological test variables could distinguish between these groups. Compared to the nonbattered group, the battered group produced substantially more fear responses. We also found significant positive relationships between the amount of fear responses produced and frequency of abuse, number of previous visits to a battered women's shelter, and medical treatment sought following an abusive incident. We discuss these results in the context of previous findings and their implications for the personality of battered women. We speculate that lowered environmental interest might be a personality factor that prolonged the abuse and that fear is a basic reaction to anticipated bodily harm.     

A Markov Chain Monte Carlo Approach to Confirmatory Item Factor Analysis

Item factor analysis has a rich tradition in both the structural equation modeling and item response theory frameworks. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate a novel combination of various Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) estimation routines to estimate parameters of a wide variety of confirmatory item factor analysis models. Further, I show that these methods can be implemented in a flexible way which requires minimal technical sophistication on the part of the end user. After providing an overview of item factor analysis and MCMC, results from several examples (simulated and real) will be discussed. The bulk of these examples focus on models that are problematic for current “gold-standard” estimators. The results demonstrate that it is possible to obtain accurate parameter estimates using MCMC in a relatively user-friendly package.     

Alternative Factor Structure for the Revised Self-Consciousness Scale

Confirmatory factor analysis (LISREL; Jöreskog & Sörbom, 1989) of data drawn from a sample of middle and senior school students was used to examine a variety of factor structures proposed in previous studies to underlie self-consciousness. Examination of the content of the Revised Self-Consciousness Scale (Scheier & Carver, 1985) suggested an alternative factor structure. This alternative structure comprised 2 private self-consciousness factors: Rumination on the General Self and Monitoring of Specific Aspects of Self. The public self-consciousness measure was retained as originally formulated with the exception of 1 item that was excluded from the final structure. This model of self-consciousness fit the data better than the 4 previously proposed structures.     

Relationship Between the Children's Assertiveness Inventory (CAI) and the Revised Behaviorial Assertiveness Test for Children (BAT-CR)

In this study, the relationship between a self-report measure of assertive behavior in children, the Children's Assertiveness Inventory, and a role-play measure of assertive behavior, the Revised Behavioral Assertiveness Test for Children, was examined in 69 elementary school children. Measures of assertive responding to positive (initiating interactions/giving and receiving compliments) and negative (standing up for one's own rights/refusing unreasonable requests) situations were obtained for both self-report and role-play measures. Results suggest that self-report of positive assertion is more closely related to role-play measures and expert ratings of assertiveness than is self-report of negative assertion. Results are discussed in terms of relationship between assertive behavior and aggressive behavior in children and the need to "unbind" these two notions in future studies. Developmental issues which limit the finings are also addressed.     

Item Factor Structure of the Personality Adjective Check List

This study reports on a principal-components analysis of the Personality Adjective Check List (PACL) at the item level. Data came from a national sample of normal adults and included the responses-of 1,058 men and 1,194 women (N = 2,252). Analyses were conducted separately for men and women, and for the sexes combined. The scree test was applied to decide on the number of factors to extract. Retained factors were rotated by varimax and direct oblimin procedures. Results were very similar for each analysis, with coefficients of congruence for the five orthogonal factors obtained from men and women separately being .95, .92, .94, .94, and .92. The five unipolar personality dimensions isolated were interpreted as Aggressive/Dominant, Neurotic, Conscientious, Detached/Introverted, and Surgent/Extraverted. These were compared to item factors of the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI-I), MCMI-II, Adjective Check List (ACL), and to Norman's Big Five dimensions.     

Item format and the structure of the Eysenck Personality Inventory: a replication

A seven-choice response format for personality inventories allows finer distinctions by subjects than the traditional two-choice format. The Eysenck Personality Inventory was employed in the present study to test the hypothesis that use of the expanded format would result in a clearer indication of test structure. A principal components analysis with a varimax rotation retained two components for the two-choice format, clearly identifiable as Eysenck's "Neuroticism" and "Extraversion" which accounted for 16% of the variance. The expanded format retained four components accounting for 28% of the variance.     

Factor invariance of the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory

Several factor analyses of the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI) have resulted in very similar solutions. Interpretation of this consistency is hampered by the fact that the 20 scales of the inventory share items. Overlapping items cause the scales to be linearly dependent and may create structure in the interscale correlation matrix which is separate from the subject response patterns. A factor analysis was performed on the matrix of item-overlap coefficients which describes the underlying artifactual structure of the instrument. Data from two new subject samples were factor analyzed and compared to previously published studies. Similarity coefficients among factors across studies were calculated.     

The Factor Structure of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory

Seventy-seven female and 86 male psychologist practitioners filled out the Bem Sex Rote Inventory to describe either a healthy adult male, healthy adult female, or healthy adult, sex unspecified. Analyzing the data according to Bem's classification of masculinity, femininity, and androgyny produced a significant Scale X Condition interaction with male and female practitioners ascribing significantly more masculine than feminine traits to healthy adult men, yet displaying no comparable differences when rating healthy adult women. Analyzing the data according to Spence's classification of masculine, feminine, androgynous, and undifferentiated produced a Group X Condition interaction with practitioners ascribing significantly more masculine traits to healthy adult men and significantly more feminine traits to healthy adult women. Reanalyses omitting "masculine" and "feminine" from Bem's fist of sex-typed traits produced nonsignificant results. The relationship of this to recent criticisms of the construct validity of the BSRI and to the validity of earlier results of therapist sex-role bias was discussed.     

Shortening the Home Environment Inventory: A Polytomous Item Response Theory approach

Assessing an Indian home presents a great challenge to researchers because of its’ cultural uniqueness, complex family structure, and social practices. Currently, the home environment inventory (HEI) is the most widely applied Indian scale for assessment of home environment of school-going children. However, administration of the scale becomes cumbersome in a testing situation because of its lengthy nature. The present study aimed at shortening the 100-item HEI so as to reduce the respondents’ burden while preserving the quality of information simultaneously. Data were collected from 548 adolescent school students (Mean age?=?14 years; SD?=?1.24) from Bengali Hindu middle-class families and analyzed using a polytomous item response theory approach. A shortened version of the scale was derived through Principal Component Analysis and compared with the original scale based on the fit measures obtained through confirmatory factor analysis. Further, a preliminary validation of the shortened scale was done by comparing it with the original scale in another adolescent sample (n?=?256). Results bear evidence of statistically valid applicability of the shortened version of HEI.     

The Beck Depression Inventory: Item Order and the Impact of Response Sets

The lack of subtle content in the item groups of the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and the consistency in the ordering of the items from least to most pathological make this instrument unduly susceptible to either defensive or malingering response sets. Two experimental forms were developed for the BDI: a backwards version (a simple reversal of the order of items within each group) and a random-order version. These forms, together with the original item order, were given to college undergraduate women along with the Depression scale from the MMPI and the Burks-Martin Questionnaire covering recent life changes and current stressful situations. The random order BDI results in a significantly higher depression score than did either the original or backwards version. Correlations with the other instruments were comparable for all three forms. The random order of items within each set appears to break up a response set to endorse either the first or last item and is, therefore, recommended.