Measuring higher education students’ perceived stress: an IRT-based construct validity study of the PSS-10

TY - JOUR

T1 - Measuring higher education students’ perceived stress: an IRT-based construct validity study of the PSS-10

AU - Nielsen, Tine

AU - Dammeyer, Jesper

PY - 2019/12

Y1 - 2019/12

N2 - The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10) is widely used. Factor-analytic studies have reported a two-dimensional structure (Perceived Stress and Perceived Lack of Control subscales), however, few studies have employed Item Response Theory (IRT) or focused on the issue of differential item functioning (DIF). The Rasch Model (RM) for ordinal data and graphical loglinear Rasch models (GLLRM) were used with data from 1,552 technical and psychology university students. After elimination of item 6 the two subscales were found each to fit a GLLRM. However, lack of conditional independence of the items (LD) and equal item functioning (DIF) were found. The findings point to the need for further construct validity studies of the PSS-10 subscales focusing on the issues of DIF and LD.

AB - The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10) is widely used. Factor-analytic studies have reported a two-dimensional structure (Perceived Stress and Perceived Lack of Control subscales), however, few studies have employed Item Response Theory (IRT) or focused on the issue of differential item functioning (DIF). The Rasch Model (RM) for ordinal data and graphical loglinear Rasch models (GLLRM) were used with data from 1,552 technical and psychology university students. After elimination of item 6 the two subscales were found each to fit a GLLRM. However, lack of conditional independence of the items (LD) and equal item functioning (DIF) were found. The findings point to the need for further construct validity studies of the PSS-10 subscales focusing on the issues of DIF and LD.

KW - Faculty of Social Sciences

KW - Higher education

KW - Stress

KW - Perceived Stress Scale

KW - Rasch model

KW - Construct validity

U2 - 10.1016/j.stueduc.2019.06.007

DO - 10.1016/j.stueduc.2019.06.007

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0191-491X

VL - 63

SP - 17

EP - 25

JO - Studies in Educational Evaluation

JF - Studies in Educational Evaluation

ER -