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Journal of Personality Assessment

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Readability of Three Adult Personality

Tests: Basic Personality Inventory, Jackson
Personality Inventory, and Personality
Research Form-E
John R. Reddon & Douglas N. Jackson
Published online: 10 Jun 2010.

To cite this article: John R. Reddon & Douglas N. Jackson (1989) Readability of Three Adult Personality
Tests: Basic Personality Inventory, Jackson Personality Inventory, and Personality Research Form-E,
Journal of Personality Assessment, 53:1, 180-183, DOI: 10.1207/s15327752jpa5301_19

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa5301_19

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 JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT, 1989, 53(1), 180-183
Copyright 1989, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

BRIEF REPORTS

Readability of
Three Adult personality Tests:
Basic Personality Inventory, Jackson
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Personality Inventory, and Personality

Research Form-E

John R. Reddon
Alberta Hospital Edmonton
Douglas N. Jackson
LIniversity of Western Ontario

Three personality tests, the Basic Personality Inventory (BPI), the Jackson Person-
ality Inventory (JPI), and the Personality Research Form-E (PRF-E)were evaluated
for readability using a number of indices. Sentence length, word length, sentence
type, and four readability formulas indicated that the readability of the BPI, ]PI,
and PRF-E would not impede the administration or interpretation of these tests in
broad segments of the population.

Users of psychological tests are often interested in the reading level required t o
comprehend t h e test items. T h e question of readability is particularly pertinent
when tests designed for adults are administered t o juveniles or t o people with
little formal education, low intelligence, o r a different first language. T h e
purpose of this article is t o report readability statistics for three modern adult
personality inventories.
 READABILITY OF THE BPI, JPI, AND PRF-E 183

METHOD

Tests

The three personality tests for which readability statistics are reported are the
Basic Personality Inventory (BPI; Jackson, in press), the Jackson Personality
Inventory (JPI; Jackson, 1976), and the Personality Research Form-E (PRF..E;
Jackson, 1984). The BPI and JPI are relatively new inventories and to date have
received about 25 citations each in the literature. The PRF-E has a 20-year
history and has received more than 300 citations in the literature. The date of
printing for the BPI, JM, and PRF-E booklets was 1983, 1984, and 19'74,
respectively.
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The BPI contains 12 scales of 20 items each and was designed to be a

construct-oriented sampling of the psychopathological content domain repre-
sented by the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) clinical
scales (Holden, Reddon, Jackson, & Helmes, 1983). The JPI contains 16 scales of
20 items each and is a construct-oriented assessment sf higher level personality
characteristics of relevance for the evaluation of personality in the normal range
(Jackson, 1978). Finally, the PRF-E contains 22 scales of 16 items each and is a
construct-oriented operationalization of Murray's (1938) comprehensive system
of human needs. The PRF-E is an assessment of core personality characteristics
of relevance to a broad spectrum of behavior.

Procedure

The BPI, JPI, and PRF-E test items were entered into three separate computer
files and proofread by a spelling checker and then sequentially by three readers.
Upon completion of the proofing, the three files were separately analyzed by the
UNIX"" Writer's Workbench program (Cherry, 1982; Frase, 1983; Macdonald,
1983; Macdonald, Frase, Gingrich, & Keenan, 1982).

RESULTS

Definitions of sentence types and the four readability formulas are given in
Cherry (1982, pp. 101-102). Briefly, simple sentences contain one verb and no
dependent clause, complex sentences contain one independent and one depen-
dent clause each with a verb, compound sentences contain more than one verb
and no dependent clause, and compound-complex sentences either contain
several dependent clauses or one dependent clause and a compound verb in
either the dependent or independent clause. The four readability formulas are
based on measures of sentence and word lengths; all other things being equal,
 182 REDDON AND JACKSON

shorter sentences and words are easier to read than longer sentences and
polysyllabic words. The formulas differ somewhat because they were derived
from different texts and subject groups. Cherry (1982) suggested that the
Coleman-Liau formula is probably the most accurate for easy text and that the
Flesch score is usually the highest.
The three tests are relatively similar in terms of sentence length, word length,
and sentence type. Of the three, the BPI is somewhat simpler than the JPI and
PRF-E in terms of sentence length and also sentence type, as indicated by the
percentage of simple sentences. These sentence characteristics contribute to the
comprehensibility of the items, particularly in respondents with low levels of
language attainment. Holden, Fekken, and Jackson (1985) reported that simpler
test items are also more valid. In terms of readability, the three tests are also
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relatively comparable in the area of reading grade level estimated from each of
the four readability formulas. Of the three tests, however, theJPI was marginally
more difficult in terms of readability. If one assumes that the Coleman-Liau
formula is the best predictor of readability for relatively simple to read person-
ality tests, then somewhere between Grade 5 and 6, reading ability would be
required to complete these three personality tests.

DISCUSSION

The results suggest that, in terms of the surface features of the text, the items of
the BPI, JPI, and PRF-E can be comprehended by individuals with limited
language attainment. The items and words in each test are relatively short and
few compound or compound-complex sentences were found. The reading grade
levels were also relatively low with the maximum value of 7.3 for the BPI, 7.7 for
the JPI, and 6.9 for the PRF-E, as estimated with the Flesch formula, which
probably overestimates reading difficulty for personality tests.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The research for this article was supported by Grant No. 41 1-83-0014 from the
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and by Alberta
Hospital Edmonton.

REFERENCES

Cherry, L. (1982). Writing tools. EEE Transmtions on Communications,30, 100-105.

Frase, L. T. (1983).The U N P Writer's Workbench software: Philosophy. The Bell System Technical
Journal, 62, 1883-1890.
 READABILITY OF THE BPI, JPI, AND PW-E 3183

Holden, R. R., Fekken, G. C., &Jackson, D. N. (1985). Structured personality test item character-
istics and validity. Jarmal of Research in Personality, 19, 386-394.
Holden, R. R., Reddon, J. R., Jackson, D. N., & Helmes, E. (1983). The construct heruistic applied
to the assessment of psychopathology. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 18, 37-46.
Jackson, D. N. (1976). Jackson Personality Inventory manual. Goshen, NY: Research Psychologists
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Macdonald, N. H., Frase, L. T., Gingrich, P. S., & Keenan, S. A. (1982). The writer's workbench:
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John R. Reddon
Statistics Lab
Alberta Hospital Edmonton
Box 307
Edmonton, Alberta T5J 2J7
Canada

Received October 23, 1987

Revised April 20, 1988