Applying a construction rational to a rule based designed questionnaire using the Rasch model and LLTM

The use of questionnaires is widespread in psychological assessment. Typically items are constructed more or less “intuitively” and their difficulty is determined with empirical studies. In order to improve the construct validity of questionnaire items an approach to constructing questionnaires by using construction rationals is demonstrated. This approach has its origins in the cognitive sciences and intelligence research and is applied in the present study for the purpose of constructing and validating a self-reporting extraversion scale. Therefore, a construction rational was developed as a basis for item generation allowing the prediction of the difficulty of an item. After establishing a Rasch model fitting item pool, the appropriateness of the developed construction rational was assessed by means of the linear logistic test model (LLTM). It was not possible to fully explain item difficulty with the proposed construction rational. Nevertheless, this approach is a reasonable method for constructing questionnaire items in a more rational rather than intuitive manner. A further benefit to be considered is that an appropriate construction rational would enable automatized item generation.