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A reliability and validity study of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory

Article  in  Journal of Clinical Psychology · April 1976

DOI: 10.1002/1097-4679(197604)32:23.0.CO;2-G

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 A RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY STUDY
OF THE STATE-TRAIT ANXIETY INVENTORY
RICHARD L. METZGER^' *
Muskingum College
New Concord, 0.

PROBLEM
The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) of Spielberger, Gorsuch and Lus-
^^' ^ is designed to provide an empirical measure of the anxiety level of "normal"
adults. The concept of state anxiety (A-state) refers to a momentary condition
of the organism. This condition is subject to continual fluctuation as a result of
temporal changes in the environment. Trait anxiety (A-trait) refers to the "rela-
tively stable individual differences in anxiety proneness^^- P- ^K" Changes in the
environment that seem to have little effect on A-trait levels appear to have a marked
infiuenee on A-state.
The STAI is used in a variety of clinical and research settings. Spielberger,
et al.^^'^ suggest that in research it may provide a viable measure of drive level
(D). The A-state provides information about the present D of the organisms, and
the effects of stressful situations may be seen as changes in A-state. The A-trait
scale is valuable in the clinical setting to differentiate between anxiety-prone
clients. This distinction may be valuable in counseling situations because the A-state
can provide an indicator of changes in anxiety that result from therapy.
The present research attempted to evaluate the STAI in an experimental
situation. It was hypothesized that if the claims to differentiating power were
valid, the inventory should discriminate between A-state scores for a group under
stress conditions and a group under no-stress conditions. No difference should
exist between groups on A.-trait scales.
METHOD
Subjects. Ss were 71 college students, 30 males and 41 females, enrolled in an
introductory psychology course, who were given credit toward their grade in this
course for participation.
Procedure and Materials. The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) was
administered in accord with the instructions for administration ^^^ The stress and
no-stress groups were formed by the classroom section in which the *Ss were enrolled.
The stress group was given the STAI immediately after an hour examination in
their section. This posttest (PT) condition was felt to be sufficiently stressful to
evoke differences. The no-stress group was given the STAI in class under a no-test
(NT) condition, i.e., no hour examination that day.
A retest was given to 20 selected >Ss 21 days after the first administration.
The *Ss for retest were 10 with scores higher than the 85th percentile or above and
10 who scored in the 15th percentile or below.
RESULTS
The scores were analyzed by the SCORIT technique ^^^ Because the STAI
is scored with a Likert scale, item analysis was done once with response one used
as the correct response and once with response four as the correct response. This
distinction was made to allow for analysis of the discriminating abilities of the
scales with high- and low-scoring *Ss. Thus, six sets of data were available: the total
A-trait and A-state scores, A-state with response one correct (ASLo), A-state with
response four correct (ASHi), A-trait with response one correct (ATLo), and A-trait
with response four correct (ATHi).
The author wishes to thank Dr. H. Edwin Titus for his help in planning this study.
'Currently at the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, N.D. 58201.
 A Reliability and Validity Study of the STAI 277

An item analysis was performed that used the point biserial correlation, and
the results are shown in Table 1. The number of significant correlations suggests
that the individual items have a good discriminating ability.
TABLE 1. POINT BISERIAL CORRELATIONS OF ASLO, A S H I , A T L O , AND A T H I

Item ASLo ASHi ATLo ATHi

1 58** 48** 31* 00

2 54** 12 21 20
3 69** 08 42** 00
4 52** 18 55** 27*
5 68** 58** 33* 00
6 61** 13 57** 56**
7 58** 63** 24 14
8 38** 40** 57** 44**
9 51** 03 64** 29*
10 52** 53** 49** 00
11 49** 28* 50** 35*
12 58** 51** 51** 33*
13 44** 05 59** 35*
14 55** 29* 48** -07
15 58** 33* 46** 50**
16 62** 60** 52** 50**
17 63** 64** 28* 04
18 54** 48** 54** -10
19 53** 36* 45** -01
20 52** 70** 36* 50**
*p < .05; **p < .01

The question of reliability was approached from several points. Because the
A-state scale contains an even number of reverse- and forward-scored items, these
items were used to constitute a split-half. The A-trait scale does not contain an
even number of forward- and reverse-scored items, so such division was not ap-
propriate. Odd-even split-halves were computed, and all correlations are shown in
Table 2.
TABLE 2. SPLIT-HALF CORREL.\TIONS FOR A-STATE AND A-TRAIT

Scale Condition r
A-state (forward-reverse) NT .45
A-state (forward-reverse) PT .85
A-state (odd-even) NT .53
A-state (odd-even) PT .82
A-trait (odd-even) NT .78
A-trait (odd-even) PT .85

The test-retest reliability was computed and was found to be .97 for A-trait
and .45 for A-state. The K-R 20 correlations were computed for the four analyses,
and the results are shown in Table 3.
278 Journal of Clinical Psychology, April, 1976, Vol. 32, Xo. 2.
TABLE 3. K-R 20 CORRELATIONS

Scale K-R 20 Correlation

ASLo .92
ASHi .81
ATLo .87
ATHi .67

In order to test the hypothesis that a PT condition would elevate A-state scores
with no effect on A-trait, ^tests were computed. The A-state NT was found to be
significantly lower than the A-state PT (t = 2.46, p < .025, df = 70). No signifi-
cant difference existed for A-trait in either the NT or PT condition {t = .93, df =
70).
DISCUSSION
The STAI was found to have good discriminating ability for both high- and
low-scoring Ss. The inventory also has an impressive set of reliability coefficients,
which .suggest that it would be an excellent device for research and clinical purposes.
The major issue in the present research was the validity of the STAI as an
instrument to test temporal and permanent anxiety. It was found that the STAI
reflects differences between presumably stressful and non-stressful situations while
it yields a reliable measure of the individual level of anxiety of the person. It may
prove a useful instrument to measure changes in the anxiety of clients across therapy
sessions'2 ^
SUMMARY
The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory was examined in stress- and no-stress
situations. >S's completed the inventory after an hour examination (stress condition)
and in their class section on a nontest day (no-stress condition).
It was found that the inventory is a highly reliable measure and that it has
the ability to discriminate between high- and low-stress situations. These results
suggest its potential as a clinical and research tool.
REFERENCES
1. GAMES, P. A. SCORIT - a fortran program for scoring and item analysis of Porta-Punch test
cards. Educ. psychoL Meas., 1965, 25, 881-884.
2. SPIELBERGER, C . D . , GORSUCH, R . L . and LUSHENE, R . E . STAI Manual for the State-Trait
Anxiety Inventory. Palo Alt<j, Calif : Consulting Psychologists Press. 1970.
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