E-ISSN : 2733-4538
Basing on the research done by Christian, Burkhart, and Gynther (1978), 214 college students were asked to rate all of the 566 items of the MMPI on a five-point scale how subtle or obvious each item stated the pathology concerned. Subjects were also requested to predict which way-either true or false-each item be scored in terms of the pathological direction. The 214 subjects were divided into two groups and each group was to rate a half of the 566 items. On the basis of 14 duplicated items, 87.1% of reliability of ratings was obtained. It was found that 365 items were rated obvious while the rate of 201 items were subtle. Ratings on a five-point scale of the item obviousness show that the clinical scale Pa is the most obvious while the Hs and the Mf are the least. The results of this study is compaired to the Wiener's study(1998) to find that 16.4% of the subtle items and 17.8% of the obvious items are classified as not valid. It is recommended that further study is needed to test the validity of the subtle-obvious items.