Comparison of response formats for the Depression Adjective Check Lists

Studied potential checking and response bias on the Depression Adjective Check Lists (DACL) by comparing the scores of 144 college students on three administration formats: True-false, forced-choice, and standard format. The DACL scores on the three formats were interrelated significantly with one another as well as with an independent measure of state depression of college students (CID). Correlations between the number of depressive adjectives checked and the depression score were significant in the true-false format, but not in the standard format. This argues against the use of the true-false format of the DACL. However, in demonstrating only a weak social desirability response bias, and in failing to reveal the existence of a checking bias, the results give further credence to the use of the standard format.