Measuring Self-Esteem with Expanded Format in a Fraction of Time: ESE-S and ESE-US

Abstract

Despite the ubiquity of Likert format scales, they are not without problems—distorted dimensionality being one of the most serious. Zhang and Savalei proposed an alternative to Likert format called the Expanded format, in which each response option in the Likert scale is replaced with a series of complete statements. In response to their recent call, the purpose of the present study is to develop concise but valid Expanded format scales for the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. Short (four-item) and ultra-short (two-item) scales were constructed, and their validity was examined in four studies. Results showed both new scales had good psychometric properties (dimensionality, reliability, and validity). Therefore, they would seem to be practical alternatives to the RSES for future research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data are available upon request to the corresponding author.

Notes

1 Simulation research has shown that Weighted Least Squares Mean and Variance adjusted (WLSMV) estimator tends to overestimate the correlations among latent factors, especially when sample size is small or when latent distributions are moderately nonnormal (Li, 2016). Robust maximum likelihood estimator is recommended in interfactor correlation examination (Li, 2016).

2 We reasoned that usually a participant should take less than 30 s to complete an item. Including all response times does not change our findings but increases (and possibly biases) the standard deviations of the response times. Some participants might leave the computer idle and return to the survey a few minutes later.

3 One hundred and eight participants have participated in one of the previous three studies. They have already been excluded from the analysis resulting in 494 participants.

Additional information

Funding

The research is financially supported by the MYRG grant (MYRG2018-00010-FED) from the University of Macau to the CONTACT.