PSYCHOMETRIC PROPERTIES OF A PAPER-AND-PENCIL TEST MEASURING THE PERSONALITY-TRAIT OF PERSISTENCE

A test measuring the behavioral aspects of the personality trait of pe rsistence, The Persistent Effort Test, was constructed and psychometri c properties assessed. The original version consisted of 12 items, eac h one a nonsense block of six letters. The task of 9 men and 9 women w as to construct as many correct Swedish words as possible from letter combinations. The total time spent on this task and the number of corr ect words constituted the dependent variables. A Persistence Effort Qu otient was calculated. The reliability calculated on the quotient for the 12-item version was acceptable (Cronbach alpha=.86) and an item an alysis indicated that the test could be shortened by six items with in creased reliability (Cronbach alpha=.87). A validity analysis also usi ng the quotient performed with a second sample of subjects using class mates' ratings on two separate rating scales of specific aspects of pe rsistence, yielded acceptable validity (Pearson r=.69 for the first sc ale and.71 for the second scale). This indicates that the shortened 6- item version is a reliable and valid test of persistence even though i t is necessary with more studies to address the issues of predictive v alidity and norms for different groups of people.