PSYCHOMETRIC EQUIVALENCY OF AN ELECTRONIC VISUAL-ANALOG (EVA), A CONVENTIONAL VISUAL-ANALOG, AND A LIKERT RATING-SCALE

The paper-and-pencil format is not always convenient (e.g., bed-ridden patients). A hand-held electronic visual-analog (EVA) instrument was devised as an alternative reporting format. One side of the EVA device contains a horizontal line and a slider which the subject moves to in dicate their response. The other side contains a 3-digit display measu ring the position of the slider from Left=000 to right=999. The purpos e of this research was to demonstrate the psychometric equivalence of EVA with the paper-and-pencil visual-analog and the Likert scale forma ts regarding the Self-Deception Questionnaire (Gur and Sackheim, 1979) . Thirty subjects (15 men, 15 women) aged 19 to 50 years took the Self -Deception Questionnaire three times in counterbalanced order using ea ch of the above mentioned repsonse formats. Results demonstrated psych ometric equivalence regarding means, standard deviations, and intercor relations. It was concluded that the EVA format yielded the same infor mation about the Self-Deception Questionnaire as did the other two rat ing formats. Hence, rendering the visual-analog rating method in elect ronic form appears to give equivalent information and therefore provid es a valid alternative format for patients who find the paper-and-penc il format difficult.