Comparison of rating scale and checklist versions of the comprehensive affect personality scales.

Abstract

This study investigated the assessment relationships between the four Comprehensive Affect Personality Scales (CAPS). The purpose of this study was to examine the researcher's hypothesis that the CAPS Likert-type scales (Affect State Rating (ASR) scale and Personality Trait Rating (PTR) scale) will be more sensitive in detecting significant differences than will the CAPS Adjective Checklist (ACL) scales (Affect State Checklist (ASC) and Personality Trait Checklist (PTC)). The current research also attempted to clarify the impact of state and trait questioning formats (different temporal directions) used in the CAPS-ACL and Likert-type scales on the assessment ofaffect and personality. The participants were 107 undergraduate students attending a medium-sized midwestern university. Participants completed the ASC, ASR, PTC, and PTR Scales. Results indicated that the CAPS Likert-type scales were considerably more sensitive to significant differences than the CAPS-ACL scales. More specifically, the researcher obtained four significant differences when using the CAPS Likert-type scales, whereas when using the CAPS-ACL scales no significant differences were obtained. The researcher obtained significant positive correlations between the CAPS-ASRJASC and the CAPS-PTR/PTC scales. The personality trait correlations indicated one low and five moderate relations. The affect state correlations indicated three substantial, five moderate, and four low relationships. These results suggest that the differing temporal directions at the beginning of the personality and affect scales influenced participant responses.