A psychometric analysis of the revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire short scale

Abstract

This study was carried out in order to study the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the EPQ-RS. The factor structure is investigated through exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and structure equation modelling (SEM). Both orthogonal and oblique rotation procedures have been conducted. EFA results show that the EPQ-RS has a very robust four-factor structure. Also, these factors are found to be fairly congruent with the normative Spanish version (Eysenck, H. J., & Eysenck S. B. J. 1997). In spite of this, SEM shows a misfit of the four-factor simple structure model. However, modification indices show nine-item pairs with high correlations between their error terms. A content analysis reveals that these item pairs are quite redundant. After deleting seven of them, a respecified model of 41 items was tested yielding an appropriate fit. SEM techniques are suggested as a useful procedure to improve construct validity and dimensionality of the EPQ-RS.