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Is reliability compromised towards the end of long personality inventories?

Bäckström, Martin LU and Björklund, Fredrik LU orcid (2019) In European Journal of Psychological Assessment 35. p.14-21
Abstract
During very long self-rating sessions there is a risk that respondents will be tired and/or lose interest. Is this a concern for users of long personality inventories, such that the reliability becomes threatened in the latter half when respondents have made hundreds of personality self-ratings? Two thousand three hundred and fifty two volunteers completed long (≈ 500 items) personality inventories on the Internet, where items were presented in a unique random order for each participant. Perhaps counterintuitively, there was no evidence that reliability is threatened as respondents approach the end of a long personality inventory. If anything, the ratings in the second half of the inventories had higher reliability than ratings in the... (More)
During very long self-rating sessions there is a risk that respondents will be tired and/or lose interest. Is this a concern for users of long personality inventories, such that the reliability becomes threatened in the latter half when respondents have made hundreds of personality self-ratings? Two thousand three hundred and fifty two volunteers completed long (≈ 500 items) personality inventories on the Internet, where items were presented in a unique random order for each participant. Perhaps counterintuitively, there was no evidence that reliability is threatened as respondents approach the end of a long personality inventory. If anything, the ratings in the second half of the inventories had higher reliability than ratings in the first half. Ratings were quicker towards the end of the inventories, but equally reliable. The criterion validity, estimated using Paunonen’s Behavior Report Form, was maintained too. The current results provide little reason to mistrust responses to items that appear towards the end of long personality inventories. (Less)
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author
and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Personality assessment, self-ratings, reliability, personality inventory
in
European Journal of Psychological Assessment
volume
35
pages
14 - 21
publisher
Hogrefe & Huber Publishers
external identifiers
  • scopus:85047502760
ISSN
2151-2426
DOI
10.1027/1015-5759/a000363
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
921a3e17-08e2-4621-b1be-dff4b9ddd417 (old id 8833377)
date added to LUP
2016-04-01 10:35:47
date last changed
2022-04-27 23:32:06
@article{921a3e17-08e2-4621-b1be-dff4b9ddd417,
  abstract     = {{During very long self-rating sessions there is a risk that respondents will be tired and/or lose interest. Is this a concern for users of long personality inventories, such that the reliability becomes threatened in the latter half when respondents have made hundreds of personality self-ratings? Two thousand three hundred and fifty two volunteers completed long (≈ 500 items) personality inventories on the Internet, where items were presented in a unique random order for each participant. Perhaps counterintuitively, there was no evidence that reliability is threatened as respondents approach the end of a long personality inventory. If anything, the ratings in the second half of the inventories had higher reliability than ratings in the first half. Ratings were quicker towards the end of the inventories, but equally reliable. The criterion validity, estimated using Paunonen’s Behavior Report Form, was maintained too. The current results provide little reason to mistrust responses to items that appear towards the end of long personality inventories.}},
  author       = {{Bäckström, Martin and Björklund, Fredrik}},
  issn         = {{2151-2426}},
  keywords     = {{Personality assessment; self-ratings; reliability; personality inventory}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  pages        = {{14--21}},
  publisher    = {{Hogrefe & Huber Publishers}},
  series       = {{European Journal of Psychological Assessment}},
  title        = {{Is reliability compromised towards the end of long personality inventories?}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759/a000363}},
  doi          = {{10.1027/1015-5759/a000363}},
  volume       = {{35}},
  year         = {{2019}},
}