چکیده (انگلیسی):

A real data simulation of computerized adaptive administration of the Minnesota Multiphasic Inventory-Adolescent (MMPI-A) was conducted using item responses from three groups of participants. The first group included 196 adolescents (age range 14–18) tested at a midwestern residential treatment facility for adolescents. The second group was the normative sample used in the standardization of the MMPI-A (Butcher, Williams, Graham, Archer, Tellegen, Ben-Porath, & Kaemmer, 1992. Minnesota Multiphasic Inventory-Adolescent (MMPI-A): manual for administration, scoring, and interpretation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.). The third group was the clinical sample used in the validation of the MMPI- A (Williams & Butcher, 1989. An MMPI study of adolescents: I. Empirical validation of the study's scales. Personality assessment, 1, 251–259.). The MMPI-A data for each group of participants were run through a modified version of the MMPI-2 adaptive testing computer program (Roper, Ben-Porath & Butcher, 1995. Comparability and validity of computerized adaptive testing with the MMPI-2. Journal of Personality Assessment, 65, 358–371.). To determine the optimal amount of item savings, each group's MMPI-A item responses were used to simulate three different orderings of the items: (1) from least to most frequently endorsed in the keyed direction; (2) from least to most frequently endorsed in the keyed direction with the first 120 items rearranged into their booklet order; and (3) all items in booklet order. The mean number of items administered for each group was computed for both classification and full-scale elevations for T-score cut-off values of 60 and 65. Substantial item administration savings were achieved for all three groups, and the mean number of items saved ranged from 50 items (10.7% of the administered items) to 123 items (26.4% of the administered items), depending upon the T-score cut-off, classification method (i.e. classification only or full-scale elevation), and group.