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The Between Item Relation the Format and the Structure of Inventory Eysenck Personality F. and John F. Stevenson Wayne Velicer of Rhode Island University A seven-choice format for Likert response per- Comrey Scales 1970) are allows finer distinctions sub- Personality (Comrey, inventories by sonality one of the few to this trend, jects than the traditional two-choice format. The exceptions employ- a seven-choice item format. The Eysenck Personality was in the ing Likert-type Inventory employed study the value of the multi- to test the that use of the present investigates study present hypothesis based on format would in a the that expanded result clearer and approach, category reasoning more accurate indication of sub- test structure. The such will items the to make finer permit subject in a jects, volunteers course, took the psychology distinctions and, therefore, will provide more standard two-choice version of the EPI and a seven- precise and This should choice version one week with the order meaningful responses. apart, in item and scale result increased counter-balanced. A analysis (1) reliability, principal components with a varimax two for more favorable reactions to the inven- rotation (2) yielded components subject the two-choice identifiable as format, clearly and a clearer and more accurate indica- tory, (3) Eysenck’s "Neuroticism" and "Extraversion" which tion of structure. The the test for 18% of the variance. accounted together Of seven-choice version in six ac- these questions, the reliability issue has resulted components been the most but researched, for of widely counting 46% the variance. The conflicting expanded format in the of results have been For suggested structure produced. example, inadequacies the defined the EPI, factor structure more and Cook and clearly, Deutch, (1951) Jahoda, Ferguson and a of the variance. explained greater proportion (1941) report that reliability increases as the It thus demonstrated the of apparent advantages number of increases. categories Bendig the format for scale construction. response multiple-response (1954), Komorita (1963), Peabody (1962), and structured inven- Matell and have found (1971) Traditionally, personality Jacoby reliability tories have a two-choice item format to be of the number of re- independent employed generally choice Komorita and Graham (e.g., true-false, agree-disagree, a forced sponse categories. (1965) in between The reasons are found an increase with an increase two alternatives). pri- reliability ease of in number of for scales with rela- (1) administration (i.e., only marily practical: categories simplicity of instruction for subjects); (2) re- tively homogeneous items. Masters (1974) re- duced ease of a relation for a scale that had an ini- administration (3) time; scoring; ported only and total avoidance of issues. The recent tial low score It is to re- (4) scaling variation. difficult solve these differences because different test (1) were in APPLIED PSYCHOLOGICAL MEASUREMENT instruments used the various studies and different were Vol. No. 2 1978 293-304 (2) methodologies employed. 2, Spring pp. @ 1978 Co. Copyright West Publishing 293 Downloaded from the Digital Conservancy at the University of Minnesota, http://purl.umn.edu/93227. May be reproduced with no cost by students and faculty for academic use. Non-academic reproduction requires payment of royalties through the Copyright Clearance Center, http://www.copyright.com/ 294 A and uncontrolled rived potentially confounding factorially, possesses good psychometric in- on is the that the and effect has been reliability possibility properties, used The extensively. crease in the number of response categories limited number of items (57) permits a full altered the structure of the instrument. The analysis at the item level. The in the reasoning on structure is usually determined the two-re- preceding led to the that paragraph expectation form of the instrument or established the standard EPI with two-choice sponse format should If the versions two if three the &dquo;theoretically.&dquo; multiple category yield (or Lie Scale components of the instruments have a different structure, emerges as a separate component), while a on then measures of internal based Likert format version of the EPI consistency should ad- yield in- form be ditional the scales of would and/or better (binary) defined com- original components if the structure is more these should account appropriate, particularly ponents ; components then the Komorita and for This would more of the complex. explain total variance. Graham result with to (1965) respect &dquo;heteroge- control for struc- nous&dquo; The to scales. only study Method ture is the recent monte carlo Lissitz study by an in re- The were students enrolled in two and which found increase Green subjects (1975), as the number of increased sections of a lower level psychology course. liability categories in- was and the students from two to five and no for further Participation voluntary, change were told the nature of the but not in number of task, creases the categories. general the Each issue of reaction to of format specific student The subject type hypothesis. completed the standard and has not been extensively investigated. Jones Eysenck Personality Inventory a seven-choice version of the EPI. The (1968) that seven- subjects reported generally preferred a form to a two-choice format. choice version was by the multi-category developed employing item format of This is the first author’s in- the Comrey Personality Scales by finding supported 57 with the items of EPI. formal observations. the Comrey employed The relation between item format and the two different scalings for different items: one has based on a frequency concept from structure of the not been studied (ranging inventory to and the other on If in &dquo;Always&dquo; &dquo;Never&dquo;) based a the format extensively. multi-category does, likelihood from to finer concept fact, provide meaningful distinctions, an (ranging &dquo;Definitely&dquo; of structure at the item level could re- &dquo;Definitely Not&dquo;). This method was easily analysis to the items of the EPI. in a defmed scale and struc- Administration sult better inventory adapted ture. in structure from was in two sessions one week Improvements resulting apart. Approxi- half the students took the EPI this would include for mately Standard approach (1) accounting first and then the Likert while order more of the total (2) EPI, the variation, higher component and/or was reversed for the students. Only loadings, (3) identification of additional remaining and students who completed both forms were in- Joe John both (1973) components. employed cluded in the final = (N 77). forced-choice for- sample the traditional (two-response) For a each version of the and a I- inventory, principal mat six-choice with the Rotter response E six-choice was on the Scale. The format resulted in two components analysis performed 57X57 matrix of intercorrelations. clearly factors, the item interpretable illustrating po- tential value of the for Velicer’s (1976) Minimum Average Partial multi-category approach was used to deter- correlation method scale structure. (MAP) probing In mine the number of to extract. A the the components study, Eysenck Personality present varimax was on the was selected for use in an in- rotation performed compo- Inventory (EPI) of nent of the effects format on pattern. vestigation response EPI A critical in of structure. The was de- issue this is the method inventory originally study Downloaded from the Digital Conservancy at the University of Minnesota, http://purl.umn.edu/93227. May be reproduced with no cost by students and faculty for academic use. Non-academic reproduction requires payment of royalties through the Copyright Clearance Center, http://www.copyright.com/ 295 Table 1 Comparison of Results of Component Analysis with EPI Scoring Keys.* (Continued on next page) Downloaded from the Digital Conservancy at the University of Minnesota, http://purl.umn.edu/93227. May be reproduced with no cost by students and faculty for academic use. Non-academic reproduction requires payment of royalties through the Copyright Clearance Center, http://www.copyright.com/ 296 Table 1: Continued *Loadings greater than .30 are underlined. the number of to be an exact is parison that determining components purposes, stopping point extracted. The MAP method 1976) is determined is (Velicer, empirically Alternative, necessary. of advan- more a number traditional as such the rather but it methods, scree test new, possesses this The de- or the for a of type. procedure eigenvalue-greater-than-one criterion, tages study less For termines of succes- results. both the number by give satisfactory analyses, components the scree test clear sively out until the aver- provided no solution. The partialing components mini- reaches a method resulted in age squared correlation eigenvalue-greater-than-one partial 21 for mum. this the and 17 retained format for Components by procedure components binary are clearly &dquo;common&dquo; components. For com- the Likert format. However, in both cases, the Downloaded from the Digital Conservancy at the University of Minnesota, http://purl.umn.edu/93227. May be reproduced with no cost by students and faculty for academic use. Non-academic reproduction requires payment of royalties through the Copyright Clearance Center, http://www.copyright.com/
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