An In-Depth Analysis of the Perceived Stress Scale Among College Freshmen and Transfer Students

Abstract

The PSS10 has been used widely and is helpful to identify at-risk individuals for clinical mental illness such that timely early intervention can be provided. Directions for applying PSS10 with college freshmen and transfer students are suggested noting several non-negligible psychometric concerns including gender bias and violation of ordinality assumption.

Keywords:

• Perceived stress
• Rasch analysis
• item response tree models
• differential item functioning

Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Corwin Senko for providing access to the college student dataset and for providing much needed guidance and information throughout the writing process.

Author Contributions

Andrew Perry supplied the data. All authors contributed to developing the research questions. Dr. Meng-Ting Lo performed and interpreted the analyses and also drafted the results and implication sections. Andrew Perry drafted the introduction and the survey-related background sections. Dr. Rebecca Berenbon drafted the methodological background section and the discussion. All authors made revisions to the initial draft and approved the final version of the manuscript for submission.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethical Approval

The data were collected under IRB #2017-094 at the State University of New York at New Paltz. Data were deidentified before transfer to the coauthors and thus no additional IRB approval was needed.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Meng-Ting Lo

Meng-Ting Lo is PhD/Assistant Research Fellow at the Center for Institutional Research and Data Analytics, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan.

Andrew H. Perry

Andrew H. Perry is a graduate research associate at The Ohio State University. He is also a 4th year graduate student in the Educational Psychology program.

Rebecca Berenbon

Rebecca Berenbon is PhD/Associate Psychometrician in the Center on Education and Training for Employment at The Ohio State University.