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Updated: Mar 30, 2026

Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Hyperscanning Study in Psychological Counseling
Published on: January 17, 2025
Item response theory analysis of Working Alliance Inventory, revised response format, and new Brief Alliance
Brent Mallinckrodt1, Yacob T Tekie1
1a Department of Psychology , University of Tennessee , Knoxville , TN , USA.
Objective:
The Working Alliance Inventory (WAI) has made great contributions to psychotherapy research. However, studies suggest the 7-point response format and 3-factor structure of the client version may have psychometric problems. This study used Rasch item response theory (IRT) to (a) improve WAI response format, (b) compare two brief 12-item versions (WAI-sr; WAI-s), and (c) develop a new 16-item Brief Alliance Inventory (BAI).
Method:
Archival data from 1786 counseling center and community clients were analyzed.
Results:
IRT findings suggested problems with crossed category thresholds. A rescoring scheme that combines neighboring responses to create 5- and 4-point scales sharply reduced these problems. Although subscale variance was reduced by 11-26%, rescoring yielded improved reliability and generally higher correlations with therapy process (session depth and smoothness) and outcome measures (residual gain symptom improvement). The 16-item BAI was designed to maximize "bandwidth" of item difficulty and preserve a broader range of WAI sensitivity than WAI-s or WAI-sr.
Conclusions:
Comparisons suggest the BAI performed better in several respects than the WAI-s or WAI-sr and equivalent to the full WAI on several performance indicators.
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