A Meta-Analytic Investigation of the Relationship Between Scale-Item Length, Label Format, and Reliability

Methodology ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 89-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tyler Hamby ◽  
Robert A. Peterson

Abstract. Using two meta-analytic datasets, we investigated the effect that two scale-item characteristics – number of item response categories and item response-category label format – have on the reliability of multi-item rating scales. The first dataset contained 289 reliability coefficients harvested from 100 samples that measured Big Five traits. The second dataset contained 2,524 reliability coefficients harvested from 381 samples that measured a wide variety of constructs in psychology, marketing, management, and education. We performed moderator analyses on the two datasets with the two item characteristics and their interaction. As expected, as the number of item response categories increased, so did reliability, but more importantly, there was a significant interaction between the number of item response categories and item response-category label format. Increasing the number of response categories increased reliabilities for scale-items with all response categories labeled more so than for other item response-category label formats. We explain that the interaction may be due to both statistical and psychological factors. The present results help to explain why findings on the relationships between the two scale-item characteristics and reliability have been mixed.

1996 ◽  
Vol 78 (3) ◽  
pp. 891-898
Author(s):  
Michael S. Trevisan ◽  
F. Leon Paulson

This study is the first empirical investigation of the 1964 Tversky condition applied to rating scales. The Tversky condition posits that the 3-response format will be optimum if testing time is proportional to the length of the test. To this end, 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-response category forms of a 10-item measure of attitudes in science were randomly administered to 241 third grade students. Reliability and validity were computed for each form. No significant differences were found among the reliability coefficients or among the validity coefficients. The Tversky condition was not confirmed for rating scales. These findings are consistent with results from other studies regarding the lack of substantial differences among reliability and validity coefficients as the number of response categories in a rating scale are varied.


2005 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 176-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrian Furnham ◽  
Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic

Abstract. This study examines the relationship between students' personality and intelligence scores with their preferences for the personality profile of their lecturers. Student ratings (N = 136) of 30 lecturer trait characteristics were coded into an internally reliable Big Five taxonomy ( Costa & McCrae, 1992 ). Descriptive statistics showed that, overall, students tended to prefer conscientious, open, and stable lecturers, though correlations revealed that these preferences were largely a function of students' own personality traits. Thus, open students preferred open lecturers, while agreeable students preferred agreeable lecturers. There was evidence of a similarity effect for both Agreeableness and Openness. In addition, less intelligent students were more likely to prefer agreeable lecturers than their more intelligent counterparts were. A series of regressions showed that individual differences are particularly good predictors of preferences for agreeable lecturers, and modest, albeit significant, predictors of preferences for open and neurotic lecturers. Educational and vocational implications are considered.


2005 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cornelia A. Pauls ◽  
Jan Wacker ◽  
Nicolas W. Crost

Abstract. The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationships between resting frontal hemispheric asymmetry (FHA) in the low α band (8-10.25 Hz) and the two components of socially desirable responding, i.e., self-deceptive enhancement (SDE) and impression management (IM), in an opposite-sex encounter. In addition, Big Five facets, self-reports of emotion, and spontaneous eye blink rate (BR), a noninvasive indicator of functional dopamine activity, were assessed. SDE as well as IM were related to relatively greater right-than-left activity in the low α band (i.e., relative left frontal activation; LFA) and to self-reported positive affect (PA), but only SDE was related to BR. We hypothesized that two independent types of motivational approach tendencies underlie individual differences in FHA and PA: affiliative motivation represented by IM and agentic incentive motivation represented by SDE. Whereas the relationship between SDE and PA was mediated by BR, the relationship between SDE and FHA was not.


2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joan Schaibley ◽  
Jay Jackson ◽  
Jazzmin Doxsee ◽  
Bhavika Mistry

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meghan Siritzky ◽  
David M Condon ◽  
Sara J Weston

The current study utilizes the current COVID-19 pandemic to highlight the importance of accounting for the influence of external political and economic factors in personality public-health research. We investigated the extent to which systemic factors modify the relationship between personality and pandemic response. Results shed doubt on the cross-cultural generalizability of common big-five factor models. Individual differences only predicted government compliance in autocratic countries and in countries with income inequality. Personality was only predictive of mental health outcomes under conditions of state fragility and autocracy. Finally, there was little evidence that the big five traits were associated with preventive behaviors. Our ability to use individual differences to understand policy-relevant outcomes changes based on environmental factors and must be assessed on a trait-by-trait basis, thus supporting the inclusion of systemic political and economic factors in individual differences models.


Author(s):  
Himanshu Rajput

Smartphone-based messaging applications have shown phenomenal growth with the proliferation of the internet coupled with the high penetration of smartphones into masses. The current study is an attempt to understand the relationship between the individuals personality and their use of WhatsApp, a popular smartphone-based messaging application in Indian context. For personality assessment the study takes Big Five Inventory. A questionnaire consisting items on individual WhatsApp use and Big Five Inventory was administered to students in an Indian University. Multiple regression and logistic regression revealed significant relationships between personality and WhatsApp usage and use of its different inbuilt functions.


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