D.Litt. et Phil. / The psychometric properties of the Comrey Personality Scales (CPS) for Afrikaans speaking university students were examined. The CPS and the 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF) were completed by 804 first year university students in Afrikaans. The CPS was translated into Afrikaans by the translation-back translation method. Scores for the 40 subscales of the CPS were subjected to an exploratory factor analysis. Nine factors were extracted and orthogonally rotated with the Tandem Criteria. Subsequently, the factors were compared with the eight factors obtained in the original normative study by means of coefficients of congruence. Six of the factors, namely Trust versus Defensiveness, Orderliness versus Lack of Compulsion, Emotional Stability versus Neuroticism, Extroversion versus introversion, Mental Toughness versus Emotional Sensitivity, and Empathy versus Egocentrism, showed congruence coefficients of 0,90 or higher. The Social Conformity versus Rebelliousness factor was clearly recognisable in the Afrikaans speaking sample, but the congruence coefficient was only 0,81. The Activity versus Lack of Energy factor split in two and one of these factors was very similar to the normative Activity factor, with a congruence coefficient of 0,89. The CPS subscales were also subjected to a multiple group confirmatory factor analysis wherein the measurement invariance of the CPS for Afrikaans speaking students and the normative American group was assessed. The results confirmed that the CPS measures the same constructs in the two groups, but the variance of the Afrikaans group for the Social Conformity versus Rebelliousness factor was much smaller than that of the American group. The measurement invariance of the CPS for Afrikaans speaking males and females was also assessed. The multiple groups confirmatory factor analysis supported the measurement invariance of the CPS for males and females. Subsequently, the mean scores of American male students and the Afrikaans speaking male students for the CPS were compared. The Afrikaans speaking students obtained higher scores for Social Conformity versus Rebelliousness and lower scores for Trust versus Defensiveness than their American counterparts. Similar results were obtained for the Afrikaans speaking and American females. The mean scores of the Afrikaans speaking males and females were also compared. The comparison of the males and females revealed that the males had higher Mental Toughness versus Emotional Sensitivity scores. The females had higher scores for Empathy versus Egocentrism, Trust versus Defensiveness, Orderliness versus Lack of Compulsion, and Social Conformity versus Rebelliousness. In the last place the CPS and the 16PF scales were subjected to an interbattery factor analysis. Six factors were extracted and orthogonally rotated. The rotated factors supported the construct validity of the CPS and 16PF scales and also provided support for four of the so-called Big Five factors of personality.

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D.Phil. / This study was done in order to investigate the presence and functioning of construct, item, and response bias across gender, ethnic, and language groups in a personality questionnaire. The Basic Traits Inventory (Taylor & De Bruin, 2006) was used as the personality assessment in this study, and is a South African-developed measure of the Big Five personality factors. This study made use of both traditional methods based on classical test theory and Rasch analysis from the item response theory genre. Comparison groups based on gender, ethnicity, and home language were specified for the analyses. The sample consisted of 6,112 students from a database of studies done using the Basic Traits Inventory. There were 2,080 men and 3,104 women in the sample, of which 1,240 were Black students and 1,139 were White students. The language groups were composed of English-speaking (n = 1,739), Afrikaans-speaking (n = 1,648), and Indigenous African language-speaking (n = 1,483) students. Some students did not indicate biographic details. The reliability of the Basic Traits Inventory was evaluated using both Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient and the person separation index (PSI) from the Rasch analysis. Both methods revealed similar indices of internal consistency. For the Big Five factors of the Basic Traits Inventory, the reliability estimates were similar across methods, and deemed satisfactory for the Extraversion (B = 0.90; PSI = 0.89), Neuroticism (B = 0.94; PSI = 0.93), Conscientiousness (B = 0.94; PSI = 0.92), Openness to Experience (B = 0.88; PSI = 0.85), and Agreeableness (B = 0.88; PSI = 0.86) scales. Three facet scales, namely Openness to Values, Straightforwardness, and Modesty, showed consistently lower than acceptable Cronbach alpha values across the comparison groups, indicating that scores on these facets should be interpreted with caution. From the Rasch analysis of each of the factors of the Basic Traits Inventory, it emerged that 35 of the 180 items showed some evidence of misfit, and specifically underfit. Of the 35 misfitting items, only 10 items showed signs of extreme underfit. iv There was very little evidence for item bias across all groups on each of the five factors of the Basic Traits Inventory. For the gender groups, there were three items with DIF contrast values larger than 0.5 logits across all five factors. For the ethnicity groups, eight of the items showed DIF contrast values larger than 0.5 logits. Only three items met the criteria for item bias in the language groups. Items O2 and O23 were judged to show item bias in both the ethnicity and language groups, and should be removed from future versions of the Basic Traits Inventory.

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Thesis (M.A.)--Cleveland State University, 2007. / Abstract. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on May 8, 2008). Includes bibliographical references (p. 35-39). Available online via the OhioLINK ETD Center. Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1999. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 85-95). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1999. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 85-95). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--York University, 2008. Graduate Programme in Psychology. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 110-135). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:NR51707

Thesis (M. Comm.(Industrial psychology))-University of Pretoria, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 65-67). Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.