Revision of the sentence completion test for ego development.

Area of Science:

• Psychological assessment
• Personality testing
• Clinical psychology

Background:

• The Washington University Sentence Completion Test (WUSCT) is a widely used projective test.
• Previous versions may have shown differences in performance or interpretation between genders.
• The need for gender-comparable assessment tools is crucial in psychological research and practice.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce new, revised forms of the Washington University Sentence Completion Test.
• To enhance the gender comparability of the WUSCT.
• To improve the validity and reliability of sentence completion measures.

Main Methods:

• Development of new WUSCT forms with revised items.
• Creation of gender-specific or combined scoring manuals for test stems.
• Strategic ordering of items to optimize participant cooperation and response independence.
• Analysis of item validity using data from diverse samples and previous WUSCT forms.

Main Results:

• New WUSCT forms demonstrate close comparability between men and women.
• Median item validity was slightly higher for women (.50) than men (.46), a difference explained by sample variance.
• Impersonal stems showed higher validity for men, leading to their increased inclusion in new forms.

Conclusions:

• The revised WUSCT forms provide a more equitable and potentially more valid assessment tool for both genders.
• The inclusion of more impersonal stems may improve the assessment of men.
• These revisions contribute to more accurate psychological evaluations and research findings.