IMPLICATIONS OF COMPUTER ADMINISTRATION O N THE FREIBURGER PERSONALITY-INVENTORY - 2 EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES

Empirical results of two studies on the practice of computer administr ation of psychodiagnostic inventories are presented. Based on the ''Fr eiburger Personlichkeitsinventar'' (FPI-R, a German multidimensional p ersonality inventory, Fahrenberg, Hampel & Selg, 1994) two studies (to tal N = 600 university students) were conducted in which (1) the stand ard paper-pencil questionnaire was compared with a computer administra ted version, and (2) the standard item arrangement was contrasted with the presentation of the items of each subscale as a block (homogenous item blocking), which corresponds to the extraction of subscales from more extensive inventories. The results confirm low significant effec ts of computer administration and of item blocking as to the means, as well as no interactions with the factor ''gender.'' The parameters of reliability increased partially under computer administration. Comput er administration itself led to a higher degree of self-consciousness. The adequacy of the FPI-R, which was standardized by paper-pencil inq uest, and a computer administrated version is thus demonstrated proven .