Psychometrics

Background. Modern society is characterized by the widespread use of social media, which provides users with communication, leisure, work, and study opportunities. With the growth of such opportunities, more time is being spent online. These circumstances explain why we developed a test entitled the Virtual Identity of Social Media Users (VISCMU).

Objective. To develop and test the psychometric characteristics of the VISMU test.

Design. The research methods included theoretical analysis, modeling, expert assessments, questionnaires, and statistical analysis. The research sample was comprised of 285 users of VKontakte and other social media.

Results. The results of factor analysis proved the acceptability of the three scales identified in the test. Expert assessments showed that the test had sufficient face and content validity. The scales were characterized by optimal indicators of internal consistency, homogeneity, and discriminatory power. The test-retest reliability values demonstrated that the test indicators were stable. Statistically significant differences in the parameter measuring virtual identity in groups with different levels of success in adult life justified a sufficient level of criterion validity. The correlation between the test scales and the components of the factor structure of the modified test "Who am I online?" indicated its compliance with construct validity norms. Positive connections between virtual identity and Internet addiction, smartphone addiction, aggressiveness, hostility, and negative relationships with vitality , indicated sufficient convergent validity. The test has been standardized and specified.

Conclusion. The test was aimed at measuring the extent to which a person’s virtual identity would reveal the specific characteristics of its impact on the individual’s personal development.

Background. Psychological boundaries are defined as one’s ability to distinguish various components of psychological life: conscious and subconscious, self and others. The Boundaries in the Mind concept by E. Hartmann belongs to the psychodynamic tradition and is implemented in the Boundaries Questionnaire, which assesses the thinness of one’s psychological boundaries. Its shortest version (18 items) has been adapted in Russian but is a one-scale tool. The BQ-46 version, developed by D. Rawlings, consists of six subscales which allow for structural analysis.

Objective. The objective of this study was to develop a Russian version of the questionnaire based on the BQ-46 and analyze its structure in a Russian-speaking sample.

Design. The BQ-46 was translated into Russian and back. Data collection was arranged online. Three hundred eighty-seven (387) participants filled in the Russian version of the questionnaire. Two hundred ninety-six (296) of them also filled out four additional questionnaires for convergent validity assessment, and one hundred and one (101) subjects completed a BQ-46 retest.

Results. The Russian version of the questionnaire (referred to as BQ-33) consists of 33 items and is a five-scale measurement tool. Its subscales are generally in line with the original BQ-46 version by D. Rawlings. The BQ-33 demonstrated acceptable-to-good reliability and good test-retest stability (r = 0.86). The convergent validity of the BQ-33 was supported by associations with the respective psychological concepts. My findings supported the idea of boundaries getting thicker with age, along with some tendency for gender differences for particular subscales.

Conclusion. The study results supported the validity and reliability of the BQ-33 in a Russian-speaking sample. This tool can be used to measure psychological boundaries and assess their structure.

Background. Multitasking is a rapidly evolving construct and we are in dire need of a sound tool for measuring multitasking behaviors and abilities across socio-cultural contexts. To this end, this study has put forward a cultural adaptation (through back translation) of an already developed (Kushniryk, 2008) measure i.e., Communication Specific Multitasking Measurement Instrument.

Objective. This study is intended to translate, adapt, and validate a multitasking measure i.e., Communication Specific Multitasking Measurement Instrument (CSMMI; Kushniryk, 2008) in the context of collectivist culture in Pakistan.

Design. The study was composed of two parts. The first part was completed in two phases. Phase I employed back and forward translation methods to translate the multitasking measure into an indigenous language. Phase II provided empirical validity of the translated and adapted instrument (CSMMI) using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) on data collected from a sample of 230 married individuals. The second part of the study was designed to establish construct validity of the translated instrument using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on a larger data set of married individuals.

Results. EFA using a varimax rotation on all 19 items of CSMMI showed that the instrument is a three-dimensional measure. CFA confirmed that the translated and adapted instrument is also a three-dimensional measure on the larger data set. Analysis of the intraclass correlation and alpha coefficient provided sound evidence for validity and reliability of the measure (CSMMI).

Conclusion. The findings of this study indicate that the translated and adapted multitasking measure (CSMMI) is reliable and valid when applied to the culturally collectivist population of Pakistan. This also pertains to any other populations where the translation is adequately applicable. 

Background. Spearman’s law of diminishing returns (SLODR) states that intercorrelations between scores on tests of intellectual abilities were higher when the data set was comprised of subjects with lower intellectual abilities and vice versa. After almost a hundred years of research, this trend has only been detected on average.

Objective. To determine whether the very different results were obtained due to variations in scaling and the selection of subjects.

Design. We used three methods for SLODR detection based on moderated factor analysis (MFCA) to test real data and three sets of simulated data. Of the latter group, the first one simulated a real SLODR effect. The second one simulated the case of a different density of tasks of varying difficulty; it did not have a real SLODR effect. The third one simulated a skewed selection of respondents with different abilities and also did not have a real SLODR effect. We selected the simulation parameters so that the correlation matrix of the simulated data was similar to the matrix created from the real data, and all distributions had similar skewness parameters (about -0.3).

Results. The results of MFCA are contradictory and we cannot clearly distinguish by this method the dataset with real SLODR from datasets with similar correlation structure and skewness, but without a real SLODR effect. Theresults allow us to conclude that when effects like SLODR are very subtle and can be identified only with a large sample, then features of the psychometric scale become very important, because small variations of scale metrics may lead either to masking of real SLODR or to false identification of SLODR.