psych
Rotter Incomplete Sentences Blank
PSYCH344: Tests & Measurements
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AGENDA
General Descriptive Information
Purpose and Nature of the RISB
Practical Evaluation
Technical Evaluation
Test Review
Summary
Rotter Incomplete Sentences Blank (RISB)
Cover of the RISB manual
General Descriptive Information
Developed by Julian B. Rotter, Michael I. Lah, Janet E. Rafferty (1950)
Current version: 1992
Performance-based personality assessment; pencil-and-paper
40 questions; takes 20-40 minutes to complete
Rotter Incomplete Sentences Blank (RISB)
Julian B. Rotter
The Rotter Incomplete Sentence Blank (RISB) by Julian B. Rotter, Michael I. Lah and Janet E. Rafferty is currently published by Pearson Assessments, with the current version (1992) containing 40 pencil-and-paper, sentence-completion items that measure the test taker’s psychological “adjustment.” Pearson’s website states that the test is expected to take between 20 and 40 minutes to complete. Grading is accomplished manually, with the scoring expected to take about 20 minutes. The Pearson website lists the RISB-2 manual for $195.80, and response sheets are available in 25-unit packs for $86.10. Pearson’s website offers very little information about what the manual includes, but does state that it “provides current normative data, scoring criteria, and case studies”
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Purpose and Nature of the RISB
Determined mental readiness in WW2-era soldiers
Three versions: High School, College, Adult
Measures “adjustment” with 240 stems
Threshold = 135 or higher: “maladjusted”
Rotter Incomplete Sentences Blank (RISB)
Given a stem “I like…;” test taker completes the statement
Concise responses associated with “adjusted” individuals
Long responses associated with “maladjusted” individuals
The RISB is a performance-based personality assessment developed in 1950 to help psychologists determine if soldiers were mentally fit to return to duty after experiencing trauma (Torstick et al., 2015). Shortly after the test was used successfully by military doctors, the civilian psychological community determined that the test could be adopted (and modified) to apply to college students to determine their need for psychological counseling. There are three versions of the RISB: the High School Form, the College Form, and the Adult Form (Pearson Assessments, N.D.). The test taker is asked to examine the 40 short stems, such as “I like,” and is expected to expound upon the stem with a “concise” response (Joy, p. 3). According to the test developers, the responses reflect “latent feelings and cognitions” (Weis, p. 1), implying the responses correspond with accepted beliefs about individuals’ adjustment. Rotter, et al. (1950) describe the instrument as a semi structured projective test of psychological adjustment” (as quoted by Weis, p.1) along a continuum (highly adjusted to maladjusted). The current version of the test that Pearson offers is from 1992 (test’s page). Rotter and his co-developers recommend a cutoff score of 135 out of 240, with lower scores indicating the tester has a higher degree of psychological adjustment, and higher scores indicating maladjustment; however, a subsequent study from 1989 determined that a more appropriate cutoff score should be 145 out of 240 (as quoted by Torstick et al., 2015).
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Practical Evaluation
Questions scored on a 0-6 scale
Very popular psychological test (14th most-used)
Easy to score, used with other assessments for “whole picture”
Slight differences between three versions
“In high school” vs. “In school”
Rotter Incomplete Sentences Blank (RISB)
The test questions are scored on a scale from 0-6, with a lower score indicating psychological adjustment, and the higher score indicating maladjustment. Interestingly, longer responses tend to produce higher scores (indicating maladjustment) because the original developers determined that maladjusted individuals “often produced long, involved sentences that crowded the writing space on the page” (Torstrick et al., p.2). The Pearson website offers vague and generalized information on several key aspects that would be used to determine reliability/validity, such as the norms that are considered in the RISB, as well as criteria that administrators must possess in order to score the tests. He goes on to include that the manual provides “an item-by-item guide” to help scorers, and a table in the manual that provides a stem with possible answers, and scoring attributed to help scorers guide their own scoring.
Several of the studies that I obtained mention that the RISB is very common among psychologists, which may provide some insight into how easy the test is to administer and score. Weis (2021) observes that the RISB “is the most frequently used sentence completion test of personality and socioemotional functioning (Weis, p. 1). Torstrick cites a Hogan study (2005) that declares the RISB to “rank 14th among clinicians in frequency of use,” though the Hogan quote fails to specific if it is 14th of all assessments (Torstrick et al., 2015). Torstrick’s study included detailed information about the test itself; for example, the difference between the College Form and the Adult Form were confined to two questions, in which the wording from the College Form was changed (“In high school,” versus “In school” or “this school” versus “this place” (Torstrick et al., p.2).
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Technical Evaluation
Norm groups needed to adapt from 1950
Soldiers vs. Civilians; population diversity
Inter-rater reliability = .93
Internal consistency of questions (Cronbach’s alpha = .81)
Correctly identified 85% of clinical diagnoses
“Must be used cautiously with other respondents”
Correlates with marital satisfaction, employee attitudes, etc.
Rotter Incomplete Sentences Blank (RISB)
Most of the studies that I found were from the years 1982 to 2000, with very few studies occurring in the past five years, and Torstrick suggests that this may be due to the prevalence of self-report surveys that incorporate “contemporary theories of personality and psychopathology” (Torstrick et al., p.1). At the time of Torstrick’s paper (2015), he had only found three validity studies on the RISB in the past 25 years: 1995, 1989, and 2005) and all of the studies used college-aged subjects. He also provides some criterion-validity by stating the RISB has been shown to correlate with marital satisfaction, employee attitudes, and other markers for general psychological distress (GPD) (Torstrick et al., p.2) Since the studies are all fairly old, their norming groups and sample populations are potentially outdated and not indicative of society overall, which good samples should be. Torstrick found that internal consistency for the 40 test items were “acceptable” with Cronbach’s α =.81. The Pearson website is vague about how the test is validated, stating the manual “includes a review of studies that substantiate reliability, validity, and clinical utility.”
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Test Review
Most validity studies are old (>5 years)
May not offer qualitative results, but works well when used with other tests
Weis (2015) found correlation between high RISB score (maladjustment) and social desireability
Rotter Incomplete Sentences Blank (RISB)
As Torstrick noted, the majority of validation studies on the RISB have been conducted in the decades immediately following the initial development of the test, and at this point could be at least forty years old. Modern researchers were careful to use multiple criterion-based tests, such as self-reporting tests, to determine if the behavior (adjustment) was actually being measured in the RISB. Subsequent validity studies, such as Joy (2017), Torstrick (2015) and Weis (2015) introduced new ways of categorizing “adjustment” so that precision could be increased, while simultaneously validating the principles that the original authors introduced. However, the fact that the RISB has remained in use since its inception without any studies that denounce its principles speak to its effectiveness.
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Summary
Popular psychological assessment
Works best as part of a battery of assessments (wholistic measurement)
Important to ensure norm groups are reevaluated periodically
Rotter Incomplete Sentences Blank (RISB)
If researchers want to build upon the current iteration of the RISB, the basic elements of the test must be retained, while periodically reviewing the norm groups’ composition and test results to ensure they remain indicative of the current environment. There are enough databases and reports to ensure psychologists stay updated on such information, and incorporating the newest versions of existing tests as I’ve mentioned in previous sections will ensure the RISB continues to contribute to psychology’s overall understanding of its clients.
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WORKS CITED
Jones, N., Marks, R., Ramirez, R., & Rios-Vargas, M. (2021, August 12). 2020 Census Illuminates Racial and Ethnic Composition of the Country. Retrieved from Census.gov: https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/08/improved-race-ethnicity-measures-reveal-united-states-population-much-more-multiracial.html
Joy, S. P. (2017). Reading Personality: Assessing "Big Three" Traits with the Sentence Completion Method. Current Issues in Personality Psychology 5(4), 215-231.
McCloskey, L. C. (2014). Construct and Incremental Validity of the Rotter Incomplete Sentences Blank in Adult Psychiatric Outpatients. Psychological Reports: Measures & Statistics, 114,2, 363-375.
Pearson Assessments. (N.D.). Rotter Incomplete Sentences Blank, Second Edition. Retrieved from pearsonassessments.org: https://www.pearsonassessments.com/store/usassessments/en/Store/Professional-Assessments/Personality-%26-Biopsychosocial/Rotter-Incomplete-Sentences-Blank-%7C-Second-Edition/p/100000307.html
Selective Service System. (1948). Selective Service and Victory: The 4th Report of the Director of Selective Service. Washington: Government Printing Office.
Torstrick, A., McDermut, W., Gokberk, A., Bivona, T., & Walton, K. E. (2015). Associations Between the Rotter Incomplete Sentences Blank and Measures of Personality and Psychopathology. Journal of Personality Assessment, 97(5), 494-505.
Weis, R. (2015). Incomplete Sentences Blank. In R. L. Cautin, & S. O. Lilienfeld, Encyclopedia of Clinical Psychology, 1st ed. (pp. 1-6). New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Rotter Incomplete Sentences Blank (RISB)