Functions of nonsuicidal self-injury in a Hungarian community adolescent sample: a psychometric investigation

Background The Inventory of Statements About Self-Injury (ISAS) is a psychometrically valid tool to evaluate the motives of nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI), but there are a few studies that test gender differences in the factor structure of the measurement. However, several differences across gender were identified in NSSI (e.g., in prevalence, methods, functions). Therefore, our study focused on further analyses of the dimensionality of the ISAS functions. Methods Among Hungarian adolescents with a history of NSSI (N = 418; 70.6% girls; mean age was 16.86, SD = 1.45), confirmatory factor analysis and exploratory structural equation modeling frameworks were used to test the factor structure of the ISAS part II. Results Results support the two-factor structure of the questionnaire. Intrapersonal and interpersonal motivation factors emerged in the whole sample, but this factor structure varied across gender. Among girls, intrapersonal motivation of NSSI was associated with higher loneliness, more inflexible emotion regulation, and a more pronounced level of internalizing and externalizing mental illness symptoms. Conclusions Our findings provide sufficiently solid arguments for the need to examine NSSI functionality separately for adolescent girls and boys because there were clear gender differences in the motives underlying NSSI. In addition, precise scanning of patterns of NSSI functions may further help us to identify the most at-risk adolescents regarding self-injury.

A Preliminary Psychometric Investigation of a Chinese Version of the Engaged Teachers Scale (C-ETS)

This study examines the psychometric properties of a Chinese version of the Engaged Teacher Scale (C-ETS). A translated questionnaire with 16 items was administered to a sample of 341 primary and secondary school teachers in Hong Kong. A series of confirmatory factor analyses were performed to assess the construct, convergent, and discriminant validity of the scale in alternative models. Results provide support for a second-order model with teacher engagement as an overarching construct with four hypothesized dimensions: emotional engagement, cognitive engagement, social engagement (students), and social engagement (colleagues). The C-ETS provides a useful measure for teacher engagement in Chinese societies. Contributions and limitations of the study are discussed.

Retraction Note to: Improving the measurement of alexithymia in autistic adults: a psychometric investigation and refinement of the twenty-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale

This article has been retracted. Please see the Retraction Notice for more detail: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13229-021-00446-6

A Cognitive Psychometric Investigation of Word Production and Phonological Error Rates in Logopenic Progressive Aphasia

Purpose This study investigated the relationship between word production rates (WPRs) and phonological error rates (PERs) in generative and responsive tasks in logopenic progressive aphasia (lvPPA). We examined whether a portion of the reduced WPR during generative tasks related directly to phonological impairments affecting PER on all tasks, irrespective of other task differences that contributed to WPR. Method Two cognitive psychometric models were hypothesized and fit to the total number of words produced and the number of phonological errors produced by 22 participants on 10 tasks. Bayesian inference was used to construct posterior distributions of participant ability and task difficulty parameters. Model fit statistics were compared. Association strengths for average generative WPR and average responsive PER were also evaluated with linear least-squares regression. Results Average generative WPR and average responsive PER were significantly associated ( r = −.77, p = .00002). A cognitive psychometric model that assumed reduced WPR on generative tasks reflects a portion of general phonological impairment yielded better fit than a model that ignored performance differences between generative and responsive tasks. Generative fluency tasks that elicited few phonological errors still reflected phonological impairment, via suppression. Individual participants were estimated to suppress between 62% and 93% of phonological errors on generative tasks that would have emerged on responsive tasks. Conclusions Suppression of phonological errors may present as decreased WPR on generative tasks in lvPPA. Failure to account for this suppression tendency may lead to overestimation of phonological ability. The findings indicate the need to account for task demands in assessing lvPPA.

Taking Inventory of the Creative Behavior Inventory: An Item Response Theory Analysis of the CBI

The original 90-item Creative Behavior Inventory (CBI) was a landmark self-report scale in creativity research, and the 28-item brief form developed nearly 20 years ago is a popular measure of everyday creativity. Relatively little is known, however, about the psychometric properties of this widely used scale. In the current research, we conduct a detailed psychometric investigation into the 28-item CBI by applying methods from item response theory using a sample of 2,082 adults. Our investigation revealed several strengths of the current scale: excellent reliability, suitable dimensionality, appropriate item difficulty, and reasonably good item discrimination. Several areas for improvement were highlighted as well: (1) the four-point response scale should probably have fewer options; (2) a handful of items showed gender-based differential item functioning, indicating some item bias; and (3) local dependence statistics revealed clusters of items that are probably redundant. These analyses support the continued use of the CBI for assessing engagement in everyday creative behaviors and suggest that the CBI could benefit from thoughtful revision.