Multicultural Personality Questionnaire: Development of a Short Form

Abstract

This study reports on the development of the Multicultural Personality Questionnaire–Short Form among 511 participants. Using a split-sample scale validation design, Study 1 (N = 260) employed a principal component analysis and rigorous item selection criteria to extract a 40-item short form (MPQ–SF) from the original 91-item Multicultural Personality Questionnaire (MPQ; van der Zee & van Oudenhoven, 2000, 2001). In Study 2 (N = 251), the MPQ–SF was subjected to confirmatory factor analysis and resulted in a reasonably good fit to the data (comparative fit index = .94; root mean squared error of approximation = .066). Satisfactory coefficient alphas and high correlations with the original scales were found. Moreover, relationships with related scales were largely in the predicted direction. Specific directions for follow-up research are posited.

Notes

All versions and forms of the MPQ are copyrighted by Dr. Karen I. van der Zee and Dr. Jan Pieter van Oudenhoven. Interested readers should contact them ([email protected]) for permission to use the instruments.

Coefficient alpha of a principal component is a simple function of its eigenvalue (Kaiser & Caffrey, 1965; see also Hofstee, Ten Berge, & Hendriks, 1998): α = [[n/(n – 1)][1 – 1/E_j ]] with n the number of questionnaire items and E_j the jth eigenvalue. An eigenvalue of 3.3 corresponds to a sufficient alpha of .70.