Effect of Personality Item Writing on Psychometric Properties of Ideal-Point and Likert Scales

The present study was designed to investigate personality item-writing practices and their effect on the psychometric properties of personality items and scales. Personality items were developed based on ideal-point and dominance models, analyzed using the generalized graded unfolding model, and emp...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychological assessment 2014-12, Vol.26 (4), p.1162-1172
Main Authors: Huang, Jialin, Mead, Alan D.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Aged
Biological and medical sciences
Correlation analysis
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Human
Humans
Item Response Theory
Likert scale
Likert Scales
Male
Middle Aged
Personality
Personality Assessment - statistics & numerical data
Personality Measures
Personality Traits
Personality. Affectivity
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Psychometrics
Quantitative psychology
Reliability
Reproducibility of Results
Test Construction
Test Items
Test Validity
Writing
Young Adult
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Summary:The present study was designed to investigate personality item-writing practices and their effect on the psychometric properties of personality items and scales. Personality items were developed based on ideal-point and dominance models, analyzed using the generalized graded unfolding model, and empirically classified as having an ideal-point or dominance form. Results suggested that writing dominance items were slightly easier (more successful) than writing ideal-point items, but this varied slightly by personality dimensions. Of 3 ideal-point item writing tactics, the "neutral" tactic was least successful; success writing "double-barreled" and "average" ideal-point items was comparable to that of dominance items. Three personality scales were then constructed using successful ideal-point and dominance items. Scales constructed using ideal-point items had substantially inferior psychometric properties, including lower score reliability, lower correlations with important criteria, and mixed test information results. However, lower predictive validity of ideal-point scale scores may be due to lower reliability of the scores. Practical and methodological implications were also discussed.
ISSN:1040-3590
1939-134X
DOI:10.1037/a0037273