The Development of a Qualitative Extension for the Personally Expressive Activities Questionnaire (PEAQ-QE): A Construct Validation Study

Abstract

This study describes the development of a qualitative extension for the Personally Expressive Activities Questionnaire (PEAQ), a widely used quantitative questionnaire assessing feeling of personal expressiveness, a core positive identity construct. The PEAQ qualitative extension was developed as part of an ongoing effort to develop and refine an easy-to-use, standardized, reliable method designed for use in adding a free response qualitative component to a full range of fixed response quantitative measures. This article reports basic psychometric properties for the qualitative extension and preliminary evidence of construct validity. The availability of a ready-at-hand standardized method for including free response qualitative extensions of widely used measures with known reliability and validity in developmental research provides a means for detecting and rendering theoretically meaningful: (a) unique sample-specific free response linguistic content properties, (b) linguistic content properties undetected by fixed response measures, and (c) newly emergent linguistic content properties of core developmental research concepts and constructs in ways not possible using fixed response methods alone.

Notes

Note. EXP = exploration; COM = commitment; IIS = informational identity style; NIS = normative identity style; DIS = diffused identity style; PE = personal expressiveness.

Note. Items adapted from the Personally Expressive Activities Questionnaire (PEAQ).