Item properties and the convergent validity of personality assessment: A peer rating study

- Evaluated personality questionnaire item properties' contributions to convergent validity.
- Convergent validity measured by correlating self-report responses with peer reports.
- Item content saturation linear predictor of convergent validity across all questionnaires.
- Mean item responses curvilinearly predicted convergent validity in one questionnaire.
- Item social desirability levels did not predict convergent validity.

The current research evaluated the impact of personality questionnaire item content saturation, item social desirability, and mean item responses on the overall convergent validity of three well-known personality measures. Archival data representing groups of same-sex undergraduate roommate dyads were used for this research. Results demonstrated that content saturation, measured using item-total correlations, was the most consistent predictor of item convergent validity, measured using self-peer item response correlations. In order to predict outcome variables in education, clinical, and vocational contexts using scores on personality questionnaires, it is important for researchers to employ item selection procedures that take into account the item properties that affect the test's convergent validity.