Career Decision Scale, My Vocational Situation, Vocational Rating Scale, and Decisional Rating Scale: Do they measure the same constructs?

Factor analyses were performed on the scale scores and items of the Career Decision Scale, My Vocational Situation, Vocational Rating Scale, and Decisional Rating Scale. Analysis of the scales revealed three factors that we named Crystallization, Decision-Making Obstacles, and Indecision. Five factors emerged from the analysis of the items, clarity, certainty, indecision, decision-making obstacles, and informational deficit. Only the first three factors were stable. The two factor structures were related. Crystallization comprised clarity and certainty items, and Decision-Making Obstacles comprised a more limited range of decision-making obstacles and informational-deficit items, plus additional items from the My Vocational Situation Vocational Identity scale. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sex and the single interest inventory: The empirical validation of sex-balanced interest inventory items.

Provides empirical evidence to show that it is possible to construct a valid interest inventory consisting primarily of items that have been pretested for sex balance. Potentially sex-balanced items were developed and pretested with 220 college-bound high school seniors. Items from the pretest that were sex-balanced and that showed "good" item characteristics were included on the sex-balanced Unisex Interest Inventory (Uni-II). Both the Uni-II and the American College Testing Interest Inventory (ACT-IV) were then administered to a national sample of 1,902 students. Comparisons were made between the 2 inventories on item and scale sex balance. The items on the Uni-II were more sex-balanced than those on the ACT-IV. Similarly, the Uni-II exhibited superior scale sex balance. Same-scale item homogeneity, correlational analysis, and spatial configural analysis supported the concurrent and construct validity of the Uni-II. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reflecting interactions among personality items: Meehl's paradox revisited.

Regarding configural scoring, P. E. Meehl (see record 1951-00366-001) provided an artificial example in which 2 binary items were not individually correlated with the incidence of schizophrenia; yet, if item interactions were taken into account, the items could accurately predict schizophrenia. Relative to this paradox, the present study shows how substantial new information can be used by uncovering item interactions in personality scales. The California Psychological Inventory (CPI) was analyzed using data consisting of 472 binary CPI item scores taken from 5,219 high school students residing in small US cities in the 1950's, originally collected by H. G. Gough (1975). Results show that for most subscales, a substantial number of items interacted such that some item weights depended on how some other items were scored. Subsequent analyses indicated that identifying interacting items pointed toward interesting subscales and subgroups of individuals as well as augmented interactive scales that were substantially more reliable than existing scales. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Vocational indecision: More evidence and speculation.

Samples of 1,005 high school juniors and 692 college juniors were assessed with measures of personality, decision-making ability, interests, and vocational attitude. Comparisons of undecided and decided students indicated that they were alike on most measures, but substantial and significant differences were found for the Identity and Vocational Attitude scales. In addition, student explanations of indecisiveness formed an internally consistent scale. This scale was, in turn, significantly correlated with measures of anomie (positive), identity (negative), interpersonal competency (negative), and some career maturity (Career Maturity Inventory) variables. The pattern of present and past significant findings implies that it may be useful to interpret some kinds of indecision as the outcome of a proposed indecisive disposition. The chief practical application appears to be the need to see undecided students as multiple subtypes who need different personal-vocational treatments. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relationship between racial identity and self-esteem in African American college and high school students.

The Multidimensional Model of Racial Identity was used to examine the relationship between racial identity and personal self-esteem (PSE) in a sample of African American college students (n?=?173) and a sample of African American high school students (n?=?72). Racial identity was assessed using the Centrality and Regard scales of the Multidimensional Inventory of Black Identity, whereas the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale was used to assess PSE. Four predictions were tested: (a) racial centrality is weakly but positively related to PSE; (b) private regard is moderately related to PSE; (c) public regard is unrelated to PSE; and (d) racial centrality moderates the relationship between private regard and PSE. Multiple regression analysis found that racial centrality and public racial regard were unrelated to PSE in both samples. Private regard was positively related to PSE in the college sample. Racial centrality moderated the relationship between private regard and PSE in both samples, such that the relationship was significant for those with high levels of centrality but nonsignificant for those with low levels. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The arbitrary nature of Holland's RIASEC types: A concentric-circles structure.

Samples of high school (n?=?370) and college (n?=?223) students completed the Vocational Preference Inventory (J. L. Holland, 1985) and the Inventory of Occupational Preference (IOP; T. J. Tracey & J. Rounds, in press). Their responses were examined with respect to whether they fit a uniform circular distribution. For both the high school and college samples, the individual interest items were uniformly arranged in a circle, indicating that there are no preferred points around the circle. Also, the 8 IOP octant scales and the 6 RIASEC scales (i.e., Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional) fit the data equally well, indicating that the 6 RIASEC scales are only one of many scale configurations that will fit a circular ordering. The results confirm that vocational interests have a uniform distribution along a circle and that the number of scales used is a matter of convenience. The relative utility of 6 or 8 scales and viewing interests as a set of concentric circles are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A note on "ethnocentrism" and acquiescent response sets.

93 high school students were given the 9-item E scale, the reversed F scale, and the Gough intolerance scale. Even though the Gough intolerance scale correlated positively with the E scale it also correlated positively with agreement to reversed F scale items. The results emphasize the "necessity of controlling item form in studying certain attitude contents, such as 'ethnocentrism' or 'authoritarianism.' " (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children of Alcoholics Screening Test (CAST) and influence of parent's drinking on their children

The Children of Alcoholics Screening Test (CAST) is a 30-item screening instrument developed to identify children who are either living with or have lived with alcoholic parents. The Japanese edition of CAST and a questionnaire on parent's drinking were administered; 572 samples of high school students and 44 samples of advanced nursing school students were obtained. The following observations were made. 1) The CAST exhibited a high level of reliability (Cronbach's alpha coefficient of internal consistency reliability = .92, reliability coefficient theta computed on principle component analysis = .92, test-retest reliability coefficient p = .96). 2) All of the 30 questions of CAST elicited affirmative responses of varying degrees, and none of the questions were found to be incongruous. 3) Factor analysis was performed to detect the potential structure model of the CAST 30 items. It revealed that the CAST is composed of and able to check, in order of relative weight, the cognitive > emotional > behavioral experiences. 4) 17.7% of the total CAST sample scored six and over, which is the score that serves as the cutoff point to identify the children of alcoholics. 5) The average CAST score of female students was found to be significantly greater than that of male students (p = 0.008). On each of the 30 items, female students had a higher rate of answering affirmatively than male students, and on 13 items (item number 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 12, 16, 19, 20, 22, 23, 28) were found to differ significantly. 6) The CAST score of the sample was found to be significantly related to the frequency of the father's drinking, and compared to male students, female students were more sensitive to and affected more seriously by their father's drinking.     

Types of vocational undecidedness: A replication and refinement.

Vocational undecidedness may be conceptualized more productively if treated as a multivariate phenomenon. In this study, 196 students undecided on career options completed a battery of personality questionnaires: State and Trait Anxiety, Self-Esteem, Work, Relationship or Leisure orientation, Locus of Control, Vocational Identity, Perception of Barriers, Need for Information, and Planful, Intuitive, or Dependent Decision-Making Style. Results on 10 of these variables were cluster analyzed to determine subtypes. To determine degrees of differences between the groups, multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was performed on the variables not included in the clustering analysis, suggesting some degree of validity of the process. The emerged types resembled to a large degree those found in an earlier study (M. S. Lucas and D. L. Epperson; see record 1989-17226-001). Types and expected relevant behaviors are described. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Concordance of patients' and family members' ratings of neurobehavioral functioning after traumatic brain injury

OBJECTIVE: To examine differences in family and patient evaluation of neurobehavioral functioning in adults with traumatic brain injury (TBI). DESIGN: Differences were examined by conducting 70 paired sample t tests on scale items and 6 paired sample t tests on scale scores from a neurobehavioral inventory. SETTING: Medical center outpatient clinic. PARTICIPANTS: Three hundred one consecutive adult patients with TBI and 301 informants, primarily family members, completed the neurobehavioral inventory. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Neurobehavioral Functioning Inventory (NFI) comprised of six scales with items describing symptoms and daily living problems. RESULTS: Paired t test analyses of the six scales indicated that patients reported a significantly greater level of communication problems than did their matched family members. No differences were found for the other five scales. Paired t test analyses of the 70 scale items revealed significant differences in patient and family ratings for only 13 items. In all 13 instances, patients reported greater levels of dysfunction than were reported by their family members. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated a main effect of injury severity for only the Communication and Memory/Attention scales. CONCLUSIONS: Findings indicate general agreement between family members and patients regarding patients' everyday problems. Results do not support contentions that patients tend to underestimate difficulties. Agreement levels appear related to injury severity, item specificity, and item content. More research is needed to identify other variables relating to agreement levels, including age, injury severity, and amount of contact between patients and family members.     

Review of Patterns of belief and action.

Reviews the book, Patterns of Belief and Action by S. L. Sutherland (1981). Patterns of Belief and Action is a study of student activism at the University of Alberta in 1970. A stratified random sample of 1200 students was selected and 80% of them actually completed an extensive battery of questionnaires and attitude scales. Included in the sample were students in all years, both undergraduate and graduate, and in most of the University Acuities. Among the wide variety of measures used were items on childhood background, demographic information, various attitude scales, personality inventories and a mental health index. Sutherland offers a convincing rationale for including each of the scales. Both the measures developed specifically for this investigation and those that already existed were psychometrically refined. Factor and item analyses were used to reduce each measure to an internally consistent, brief form. As a result, many of the scales are in the 5-8 item range. Despite their brevity, almost all have good psychometric properties. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rasch measurement for reducing the items of the Nottingham Health Profile

The present study aimed to develop a short form of the Spanish version of the Nottingham Health Profile (NHP) by means of Rasch analysis. Data from several Spanish studies that included the NHP since 1987 were collected in a common database. Forty-five different studies were included, covering a total of 9,419 subjects both from the general population and with different clinical pathologies. The overall questionnaire (38 items) was simultaneously analyzed using the dichotomous response model. Parameter estimates, model-data fit and separation statistics were computed. The items of the NHP were additionally regrouped into two different scales: Physical (19 items) and Psychological (19 items). Separated Physical and Psychological parameter estimates were produced using the simultaneous item calibrations as anchor values. Misfitting items were deleted, resulting in a 22 item final short form (NHP22)-11 Physical and 11 Psychological-. The evaluation of the item hierarchies confirmed the construct validity of the new questionnaire. To demonstrate the invariance of the NHP22 item calibrations, Rasch analyses were performed separately for each study included in the sample and for several sociodemographic and health status variables. Results confirmed the validity of using the NHP22 item calibrations to measure different groups of people categorized by gender, clinical and health status.     

Multiple subtypes among vocationally undecided college students: A model and assessment instrument.

Developed a model of vocational decision status to differentiate subtypes among vocationally undecided students. The Vocational Decision Scale (VDS) was constructed to assess its 3 dimensions of decidedness, comfort with level of decidedness, and reasons for being undecided. The VDS, Assessment of Career Decision Making, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Identity Scale, Career Salience Questionnaire, and Anomy Scale were administered to 224 undergraduates. Results support the reliability and construct validity of the Decidedness and Comfort scales. A factor analysis of the reasons dimension yielded 3 factors: Self-uncertainty, Choice/Work Salience, and Transitional self. To investigate the diagnostic capability of the VDS, scales were constructed for the 3 factors, and the VDS was administered in a pretest–posttest to 81 college students enrolled in a vocational exploration course. Hypothesized pretest–posttest differences among the scales were confirmed. Results demonstrate the utility of the model, support the reliability and validity of the VDS, and illustrate the value of viewing vocationally undecided students as multiple subtypes. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The differential responding of college students to subtle and obvious MCMI subscales

This study investigated the differential responding of 49 male and 92 female college students to subtle and obvious MCMI scale items. It had been predicted that item subtlety would be correlated positively with item endorsement. This prediction was supported across all 175 MCMI items (r = .34). In addition, subjects endorsed a greater percentage of subtle than obvious subscale items for eight Basic Personality scales and two of three Pathological Personality scales. However, this pattern was not consistent for the nine Symptom Disorder scales. It also had been predicted that gender would moderate subjects' differential responding to subtle and obvious items, whereby males would show a greater tendency than females to endorse relatively more subtle than obvious items. This prediction was not supported.     

Generalizability of Holland's structure of vocational interests across ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status.

Items from the Vocational Preference Inventory (J. L. Holland; 1985) were administered to a sample of 370 African American and White high school students to investigate differences in the circular structure of RIASEC interests across ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and gender. Analyses using both the randomization test of hypothesized order relations (L. Hubert & P. Arabie; see record 1987-30217-001) and 3-way MDS suggest that there are no differences in interest structure between African American and White high school students. However, structural differences were found when both ethnicity and SES were considered together. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Tests of data quality, scaling assumptions, and reliability of the SF-36 in eleven countries: results from the IQOLA Project. International Quality of Life Assessment

Data from general population samples in 11 countries (n = 1483 to 9151) were used to assess data quality and test the assumptions underlying the construction and scoring of multi-item scales from the SF-36 Health Survey. Across all countries, the rate of item-level missing data generally was low, although slightly higher for items printed in the grid format. In each country, item means generally were clustered as hypothesized within scales. Correlations between items and hypothesized scales were greater than 0.40 with one exception, supporting item internal consistency. Items generally correlated significantly higher with their own scale than with competing scales, supporting item discriminant validity. Scales could be constructed for 93-100% of respondents. Internal consistency reliability of the eight SF-36 scales was above 0.70 for all scales, with two exceptions. Floor effects were low for all except the two role functioning scales; ceiling effects were high for both role functioning scales and also were noteworthy for the Physical Functioning, Bodily Pain, and Social Functioning scales in some countries. These results support the construction and scoring of the SF-36 translations in these 11 countries using the method of summated ratings.     

The structure of interests and self-efficiency expectations: An expanded examination of the spherical model of interests.

A questionnaire packet assessing occupational preferences, activity preferences, and career self-efficacy expectations was administered to 2 samples of college students. The structural invariance of each data set (activity, self-efficacy, and occupation items) was examined for the 1st sample via principal-components analysis and they correlated. The structure was found to be highly similar across data types. The items were then aggregated into 18 scales representing the spherical model of interests proposed by T. J. G. Tracey and J. Rounds (1996b). The 18 scales were found to fit the spherical model for both the original and validation samples. No gender differences in the structure of the scales were found, but there were gender mean differences found in the scale scores similar to results of past research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Holland type as a predictor of benefit from self-help career counseling.

Determining who would benefit from treatment interventions is an important issue for psychology in general and self-help approaches in particular. Holland high-point code and self-directed search (Holland, 1985b) scale scores were used to predict benefit from a self-help career counseling intervention for 52 students undecided as to career. Outcome was assessed by means of changes on the Vocational Identity Scale of Holland's My Vocational Situation (Holland, Daiger, & Power, 1980). Participants with realistic, investigative, or conventional high-point codes showed greater changes in vocational identity when compared with participants with artistic, social, or enterprising high-point codes. The results also indicated that higher scores on the Realistic, Investigative, and Conventional scales were related to greater changes in vocational identity. The results are discussed in relation to self-help for career concerns and the self-help field in general. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development of a measure of drinking and driving expectancies for youth.

The present study constructs and provides initial validation for a measure of positive expectancies for drinking and driving for use with adolescents and young adults (PEDD-Y). In Study 1, items were generated through open-ended responses from high school- and college-age youth. Data collected from a 2nd sample of college students (n = 404) identified a 29 item, 4 factor questionnaire. Two of the PEDD-Y factors (Convenience, Avoiding Consequences) explained additional variance in drinking and driving behavior above and beyond other cognitions about drinking and driving. Study 2 extended these results to a high school sample (n = 185). Study 3 demonstrated test-retest reliability of the PEDD-Y in college-age youth (n = 165). These results provide initial evidence for the utility of the PEDD-Y in assessing drinking and driving risk in adolescents and college students. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Is aggression the same for boys and girls? Assessing measurement invariance with confirmatory factor analysis and item response theory.

Gender differences in aggression have typically been based on studies utilizing a mean difference method. From a measurement perspective, this method is inherently problematic unless an aggression measure possesses comparable validity across gender. Stated differently, establishing measurement invariance on the measure of aggression is prerequisite to making any inferences about gender differences. This paper investigated whether aggression functions in the same way across gender using teacher-rated aggression scales from the Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC). The samples for this study consisted of the BASC standardization samples, including 1,223 children (628 boys, 595 girls) and 788 adolescents (379 boys, 409 girls). The measurement invariance of the BASC aggression scales was examined with both confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and item response theory (IRT). CFA results showed that there was not enough evidence to support the measurement invariance of the scales across gender at a scale level; IRT results found that only a few items were significantly different across gender. The two methods have similarities and differences in studying measurement invariance, so they can be complementary to each other. The implications of the findings for research and practice in school psychology are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)