Award Date

12-1-2014

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Educational Psychology & Higher Education

First Committee Member

Tara C. Raines

Second Committee Member

Scott A. Loe

Third Committee Member

Joe Crank

Fourth Committee Member

Gene Hall

Number of Pages

90

Abstract

Researchers and clinicians alike make use of various assessment instruments to investigate variables of interest. These instruments include affective assessments, which require individuals to make judgments about themselves. To make these judgments individuals reflect upon their attitudes, interests, values, and personality traits and choose the corresponding response option that they feel best represents their current status with regards to the variable of interest for each question. The optimal number of response options to be included in such affective measurement scales has been greatly debated over the past several decades (Cox, 1980; Foddy, 1993; Jacoby & Matell, 1971; Jones & Loe, 2013; Maydeu-Olivares, et al., 2009).

The purpose of this study is to investigate the factor structure and the impact of altering the number of response options available to an individual on that factor structure for the 50-item scale from the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP-50, http://ipip.ori.org/ipip/). Two de-identified datasets drawn from a collection of approximately 1000 undergraduate and graduate students are used in this analysis. Two separate, but related, investigations are presented using these data. The first is a study wherein the factor structure of the IPIP-50 is investigated. The second study is an investigation using data wherein individuals were randomly assigned to complete the IPIP-50 when five response options were presented or when two response options were presented. The factor structure of the IPIP-50 is again investigated, looking for differences between the two conditions.

The effects on the factor structure of the IPIP-50 are examined and the hypothesis that the factor structure supports the Five Factor Model of personality in all conditions is tested. The hypotheses were found to be largely supported, and the implications of this for the field of school psychology and within the realm of psychological assessment are discussed.

Keywords

Personality assessment; Personality tests – Design and construction; Psychological tests – Design and construction

Disciplines

Educational Psychology | Personality and Social Contexts

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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