Date of Award

1977

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Psychology

Program/Concentration

Psychology

Committee Director

Terry L. Dickinson

Committee Member

Robin J. Lewis

Committee Member

Glynn D. Coates

Abstract

Authorities on scale construction recommend that negatively worded items be used along with positively worded items to reduce careless responding. Negatively worded items are assumed to force respondents to consider item content more diligently. The present study investigates the influence of item wording in three versions (i.e., 33% positive, 67% positive, and 100% positive) of the Hardiness scale (Bartone, Ursano, Wright, &. Ingraham, 1989). These versions were administered to undergraduate psychology students (N = 325). Multi-sample, confirmatory factor analyses is used to compare the measurement models obtained with each version of the hardiness scale. The results of the study show that the mixture of negatively and positively worded items have undesirable effects on the measurement properties of a scale. Future research needs to include a questionnaire with no positively worded items, and to compare motivational and cognitive explanations for the influence of negatively worded items.

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In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

DOI

10.25777/9rgj-tf74

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