Table 1.
Property | Definition/test | Criteria for acceptability |
---|---|---|
Item performance | Data quality; assessed by completeness of data and score distributions Frequency and percentage of missing data per item Floor/ceiling effects Response option frequencies |
Items missing in more than 10% of responses Ceiling effect: % of responses in the highest response category > (100/the number of response options on an item) %, eg, 20% for a five-response ordinal scale Floor effect: % of responses in the lowest response category > (100/the number of response options on an item) %, eg, 20% for a five-response ordinal scale Utilization of all response options |
Reliability | Internal consistency reliability: extent to which items in a domain measure the same concept; assessed by Cronbach’s α and inter-item correlations assessed by Spearman’s or Pearson’s coefficient | Cronbach’s α≥0.70 was considered to indicate internal reliability Inter-item correlation (Pearson or Spearman coefficient items of r>0.80 should be highlighted as potentially redundant) |
Validity (hypothesis testing) | Evidence that the questionnaire measures a single concept, that items can be combined to form a summary score, and that domains measure distinct but related concepts Concurrent validity: hypotheses based on criterion measure(s) Known groups differences: ability of a scale to differentiate among known groups |
Concurrent validity: Spearman’s coefficient values of <0.3, 0.31–0.59, and >0.6 were considered to indicate low, moderate, and high levels of correlation, respectively, with acceptable ranges for convergence identified at ≥0.4 |