Conception and construction of a Rasch-scaled measure for self-confidence in one's vocabulary ability

Although different theoretical approaches indicate the importance of self-confidence in one's ability in educational or counselling psychology, there are only a few standardized psychological instruments, these being mainly questionnaires, that focus on this construct. The idea pursued is to expand a traditional ability test and create an objective personality measure for self-confidence in one's ability. Empirical evidence will be provided as to whether it is possible to construct and cross validate this measure using the Rasch model. A two step procedure allowing for a self rating of one's knowledge of words was designed using 25 items from a general knowledge - vocabulary test. The results indicate that it is possible to construct and cross validate a measure for self-confidence in one's ability using the Rasch model. Additionally, it is shown that the measure for self-confidence in one's ability is independent from the general knowledge.