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

Tine Nielsen; Jesper Dammeyer

doi:10.1016/j.stueduc.2019.06.007

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

5 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

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.

Original language	English
Journal	Studies in Educational Evaluation
Volume	63
Pages (from-to)	17-25
ISSN	0191-491X
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stueduc.2019.06.007
Publication status	Published - Dec 2019

Keywords

Faculty of Social Sciences
Higher education
Stress
Perceived Stress Scale
Rasch model
Construct validity

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10.1016/j.stueduc.2019.06.007

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title = "Measuring higher education students{\textquoteright} perceived stress: an IRT-based construct validity study of the PSS-10",

abstract = "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.",

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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 -

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

Abstract

Keywords

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