ITEM LEVEL IMPROVEMENTS FOR USE OF THE MMPI WITH ADOLESCENTS

The decision to develop a separate adolescent form of the Minnesota Mu ltiphasic Personality Inventory (i.e., the MMPI-A) raised questions ab out continued use of 20 original items that seemed unnecessarily ambig uous in content when employed with younger students (Ss). The response s of 362 academically gifted boys, aged 14 to 17 years, from an urban Catholic high school were compared on the experimental 704-item Form T X of the MMPI and a form containing 20 rewritten and 9 control items. The psychometric properties of the rewritten items indicated the same or better performance than that on the original versions while improvi ng the items' face validity and reducing item ambiguity. Responses fro m 321 Ss to a follow-up questionnaire suggested eliminating offensive or irrelevant items and reducing the test's length would increase acce ptance of the MMPI-A.