Assessment

 

Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Free Access - Register Here

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
This Article
Right arrow Abstract Freely available
Right arrow Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Sheppard, R.
Right arrow Articles by King, D. W.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Sheppard, R.
Right arrow Articles by King, D. W.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati  
What's this?
Assessment, Vol. 13, No. 4, 442-453 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/1073191106289031

Differential Item Functioning by Sex and Race in the Hogan Personality Inventory

Richard Sheppard

Central Michigan University

Kyunghee Han

Central Michigan University, han1k{at}cmich.edu

Stephen M. Colarelli

Central Michigan University

Guangdong Dai

Central Michigan University

Daniel W. King

National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Boston University

The authors examined measurement bias in the Hogan Personality Inventory by investigating differential item functioning (DIF) across sex and two racial groups (Caucasian and Black). The sample consisted of 1,579 Caucasians (1,023 men, 556 women) and 523 Blacks (321 men, 202 women) who were applying for entry-level, unskilled jobs in factories. Although the group mean differences were trivial, more than a third of the items showed DIF by sex (38.4%) and by race (37.3%). A content analysis of potentially biased items indicated that the themes of items displaying DIF were slightly more cohesive for sex than for race. The authors discuss possible explanations for differing clustering tendencies of items displaying DIF and some practical and theoretical implications of DIF in the development and interpretation of personality inventories.

Key Words: differential item functioning • item bias • measurement bias • Hogan Personality Inventory • personality testing • employee selection

References

  • Arbisi, P. A., Ben-Porath, Y. S., & McNulty, J. (2002). A comparison of MMPI-2 validity in African American and Caucasian psychiatric inpatients. Psychological Assessment, 14, 3-15.[CrossRef][ISI][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
  • Azocar, F., Arean, P., Miranda, J., & Munoz, R. F. (2001). Differential item functioning in a Spanish translation of the Beck Depression Inventory. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 57, 355-365.[CrossRef][ISI][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
  • Barrick, M. R., & Mount, M. K. (1991). The Big Five personality dimensions and job performance: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 44, 1-26.
  • Bobko, P., & Bartlett, C. (1978). Subgroup validities: Differential definitions and differential prediction. Journal of Applied Psychology, 63, 12-14.[CrossRef]
  • Butcher, J. N., Dahlstrom, W. G., Graham, J. R., Tellegen, A., & Kaemmer, B. (1989). Manual for the restandardized Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory: MMPI-2. An administrative and interpretive guide. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
  • Cavalli-Sforza, L. L. (2000). Genes, peoples, and languages. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  • Chen, C., Burton, M., Greenberger, E., & Dmitrieva, J. (1999). Population migration and the variation of dopamine D4 receptor (DRD4) allele frequencies around the globe. Evolution and Human Behavior, 20, 309-324.[CrossRef]
  • Cleary, T. A. (1968). Test bias: Prediction of grades of Negro and White students in integrated colleges. Journal of Educational Measurement, 5, 115-124.[CrossRef][ISI]
  • Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
  • Dai, G., Han, K., Hui, H., & Colarelli, C. M. (2006, May). Examining measurement invariance of the Chinese Version NEO-PI-R Conscientiousness Scale. A poster presented at the 21st annual conference at the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Dallas, Texas.
  • Daly, M., & Wilson, M. (1999, July 1). Darwinism and the roots of machoism. Scientific American, 19, 8-14.[Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
  • Day, D. V., & Silverman, S. B. (1989). Personality and job performance: Evidence of incremental validity. Personnel Psychology, 42, 25-36.[CrossRef][ISI]
  • Digman, J. M. (1990). Personality structure: Emergence of the five-factor model. Annual Review of Psychology, 41, 417-440.[ISI]
  • Drasgow, F. (1984). Scrutinizing psychological tests: Measurement equivalence and equivalent relations with external variables are the central issues. Psychological Bulletin, 95, 134-135.[CrossRef]
  • Drasgow, F., & Hulin, C. L. (1990) Item response theory. In M. D. Dunnette & M. Hough (Eds.), Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology (2nd ed., Vol. 3, pp. 577-636). Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.
  • Eagly, A. H., & Carli, L. L. (1981). Sex of researchers and sex-typed communications as determinants of sex differences in influentially: A meta-analysis of social influence studies. Psychological Bulletin, 90, 1-20.
  • Ellis, B. B., Becker, P., & Kimmel, H. D. (1993). An item response theory evaluation of an English version the Trier Personality Inventory. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 24, 133-148.[Abstract]
  • Geary, D. C. (1998). Male, female. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
  • Goldberg, L. R. (1990). An alternative "description of personality": The Big Five factor structure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 1216-1229.[CrossRef][ISI][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
  • Gorski, R. A. (1991). Sexual differentiation of the endocrine brain and its control. In M. Motta (Ed.), Brain endocrinology (2nd ed.). New York: Raven.
  • Hartigan, J. A., & Wigdor, A. K. (1989). Fairness in employment testing: Validity generalization, minority issues, and the General Aptitude Test Battery. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
  • Hathaway, S. R., & McKinley, J. C. (1940). A multiphasic personality schedule (Minnesota): I. Construction of the schedule. Journal of Psychology, 10, 249-254.
  • Hogan, R. (1986). Manual for the Hogan Personality Inventory. Minneapolis, MN: National Computer Systems.
  • Hogan, R., & Hogan, J. (1992). Hogan Personality Inventory manual. Tulsa, OK: Hogan Assessment Systems.
  • Holland, P. W., & Thayer, D. T. (1988). Differential item performance and the Mantel-Haenszel procedure. In H. Wainer & H. I. Braum (Eds.), Test validity (pp. 129-145). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
  • Jensen, A. R. (1980). Bias in mental testing. New York: Free Press.
  • Kaihla, P. (2003, November). Getting inside the boss’s head. Business 2.0, pp. 49-51.
  • Lord, F. (1980). Applications of item response theory to practical testing problems. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
  • Mantel, N., & Haenszel, W. (1959). Statistical aspects of the analysis of data from retrospective studies of disease. Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 22, 719-748.[ISI][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
  • McNulty, J. L., Graham, J. R., Ben-Porath, Y. S., & Stein, L. A. R. (1997). Comparative validity of MMPI-2 scores of African American and Caucasian mental health center clients. Psychological Assessment, 9, 464-470.[CrossRef]
  • Millsap, R. E., & Everson, H. T. (1993). Methodology review: Statistical approaches for assessing measurement bias. Applied Psychological Measurement, 17, 297-334.
  • Ones, D. S., & Anderson, N. (2002). Gender and ethnic group differences on personality scales in selection: Some British data. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 75, 255-276.[CrossRef]
  • Roy, R., & Benenson, J. F. (2002). Sex and contextual effects on children’s use of interference competition. Developmental Psychology, 38, 306-312.[CrossRef][ISI][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
  • Roznowski, M, & Reith, J. (1999). Examining the measurement quality of tests containing differentially functioning items: Do biased items result in poor measurement? Educational and Psychological Measurement, 59, 248-269.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
  • Saad, S., & Sackett, P. R. (2002). Investigating differential prediction by sex in employment-oriented personality measures. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 667-674.[CrossRef][ISI][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
  • Sackett, P. R., & Wilk, S. L. (1994). Within-group norming and other forms of score adjustment in preemployment testing. American Psychologist, 49, 929-954.[CrossRef][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
  • Scheuneman, J. D., & Gerritz, K. (1990). Using differential item functioning procedures to explore sources of item difficulty and group performance characteristics. Journal of Educational Measurement, 27, 109-131.
  • Schmit, M. J., Kihm, A., & Robie, C. (2000). Development of a global measure of personality. Personnel Psychology, 53, 153-193.
  • Schmitt, N., Hattrup, K., & Landis, R. S. (1993). Item bias indices based on total test score and job performance estimates of ability. Personnel Psychology Special Issue: Innovations in Research Methods for Field Settings, 46, 593-611.
  • Smith, L. L. (2002). On the usefulness of item bias analysis to personality psychology. Personality and Social Psychological Bulletin, 28, 754-763.
  • Tett, R. P., Jackson, D. N., & Rothstein, M. (1991). Personality measures as predictors of job performance: A meta-analytic review. Personnel Psychology, 44, 703-742.[ISI]
  • Thissen, D., Steinberg, L., & Gerrard, M. (1986). Beyond group differences: The concept of item bias. Psychological Bulletin, 99, 118-128.[CrossRef][ISI]
  • Timbrook, R. E., & Graham, J. R. (1994). Ethnic differences on the MMPI-2? Psychological Assessment, 6, 212-217.[CrossRef]
  • Waller, N. G., Thompson, J. S., & Wenk, E. (2000). Using IRT to separate measurement bias from true group differences on homogeneous and heterogeneous scales: An illustration with the MMPI. Psychological Methods, 5, 125-146.[CrossRef][ISI][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
  • Whybrow, P. C. (2005). American mania. New York: Norton.
  • Zieky, M. (1993). Practical questions in the use of DIF statistics in test development. In P. W. Holland & H. Wainer (Eds.), Differential item functioning (pp. 337-347). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
  • Zwick, R., & Erickan, K. (1989). Analysis of differential item functioning in the NAEP history assessment. Journal of Educational Measurement, 26, 55-66.

Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Journal of Career DevelopmentHome page
T. S. Behrend, L. Foster Thompson, A. W. Meade, D. A. Newton, and M. S. Grayson
Measurement Invariance in Careers Research: Using IRT to Study Gender Differences in Medical Students' Specialization Decisions
Journal of Career Development, September 1, 2008; 35(1): 60 - 83.
[Abstract] [PDF]

This Article
Right arrow Abstract Freely available
Right arrow Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Sheppard, R.
Right arrow Articles by King, D. W.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Sheppard, R.
Right arrow Articles by King, D. W.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati  
What's this?