A Message in the medium? Assessing the reliability of psychopathology e-questionnaires

Simon R. Jones; Charles Fernyhough; Lee de-Wit; Elizabeth Meins

doi:10.1016/j.paid.2007.08.014

A Message in the medium? Assessing the reliability of psychopathology e-questionnaires

Simon R. Jones, Charles Fernyhough, Lee de-Wit, Elizabeth Meins

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

46 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Internet-based questionnaires (e-questionnaires) have become widely used in psychopathology research, but there is currently little evidence on their reliability as compared with pen-and-paper equivalents. Data from separate samples of young adults completing e-questionnaires on hallucination-proneness (N = 751) and persecutory ideation (N = 183) were compared with data from pen-and-paper versions of the same questionnaires completed by a third, unrelated sample (N = 188). There was no effect of modality of presentation on mean scores on these questionnaires. Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis indicated mode invariance of factor structure for the persecutory ideation questionnaire. Internal reliability of both questionnaire formats was satisfactory. We conclude that the administration of traditional measures of psychopathology via e-questionnaire is a reliable method of data collection.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	349-359
Number of pages	11
Journal	Personality and Individual Differences
Volume	44
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2007.08.014
Publication status	Published - 2008
Externally published	Yes

Keywords

E-questionnaires
Hallucination
Pen-and-paper
Persecutory delusions
Psychopathology
Reliability

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10.1016/j.paid.2007.08.014

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title = "A Message in the medium? Assessing the reliability of psychopathology e-questionnaires",

abstract = "Internet-based questionnaires (e-questionnaires) have become widely used in psychopathology research, but there is currently little evidence on their reliability as compared with pen-and-paper equivalents. Data from separate samples of young adults completing e-questionnaires on hallucination-proneness (N = 751) and persecutory ideation (N = 183) were compared with data from pen-and-paper versions of the same questionnaires completed by a third, unrelated sample (N = 188). There was no effect of modality of presentation on mean scores on these questionnaires. Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis indicated mode invariance of factor structure for the persecutory ideation questionnaire. Internal reliability of both questionnaire formats was satisfactory. We conclude that the administration of traditional measures of psychopathology via e-questionnaire is a reliable method of data collection.",

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T1 - A Message in the medium? Assessing the reliability of psychopathology e-questionnaires

AU - Jones, Simon R.

AU - Fernyhough, Charles

AU - de-Wit, Lee

AU - Meins, Elizabeth

PY - 2008

Y1 - 2008

N2 - Internet-based questionnaires (e-questionnaires) have become widely used in psychopathology research, but there is currently little evidence on their reliability as compared with pen-and-paper equivalents. Data from separate samples of young adults completing e-questionnaires on hallucination-proneness (N = 751) and persecutory ideation (N = 183) were compared with data from pen-and-paper versions of the same questionnaires completed by a third, unrelated sample (N = 188). There was no effect of modality of presentation on mean scores on these questionnaires. Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis indicated mode invariance of factor structure for the persecutory ideation questionnaire. Internal reliability of both questionnaire formats was satisfactory. We conclude that the administration of traditional measures of psychopathology via e-questionnaire is a reliable method of data collection.

AB - Internet-based questionnaires (e-questionnaires) have become widely used in psychopathology research, but there is currently little evidence on their reliability as compared with pen-and-paper equivalents. Data from separate samples of young adults completing e-questionnaires on hallucination-proneness (N = 751) and persecutory ideation (N = 183) were compared with data from pen-and-paper versions of the same questionnaires completed by a third, unrelated sample (N = 188). There was no effect of modality of presentation on mean scores on these questionnaires. Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis indicated mode invariance of factor structure for the persecutory ideation questionnaire. Internal reliability of both questionnaire formats was satisfactory. We conclude that the administration of traditional measures of psychopathology via e-questionnaire is a reliable method of data collection.

KW - E-questionnaires

KW - Hallucination

KW - Pen-and-paper

KW - Persecutory delusions

KW - Psychopathology

KW - Reliability

U2 - 10.1016/j.paid.2007.08.014

DO - 10.1016/j.paid.2007.08.014

M3 - Article

SN - 0191-8869

VL - 44

SP - 349

EP - 359

JO - Personality and Individual Differences

JF - Personality and Individual Differences

IS - 2

ER -

A Message in the medium? Assessing the reliability of psychopathology e-questionnaires

Abstract

Keywords

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