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New Shorter VIA Surveys:  Psychometrics

Initial psychometrics have been conducted on two brief versions of the full length VIA Survey (240 questions).  One brief version is 120 questions – the VIA 120.  It was developed by statistically choosing 5 questions from the original 10 questions per scale that had the highest item-scale correlations.  The other version – the VIA 72 – chose the best 3 questions of the original 10 questions from the full length Survey.

Internal consistency coefficients were calculated for each brief survey and compared with the internal consistency coefficients of the long form.  The results averaged across all scales are as follows:

VIA Survey          Internal Consistency

Full length                   0.83

VIA -120                     0.79

VIA-72                        0.75

Initial validity coefficients were looked at with:

·         The VIA Survey long form

·         Activities Questions – 48 questions comprised of two exemplar activities for each character strength

·         Flourishing Scale (Diener et al., 2010)

The results of initial validity testing averaged across all scales on a convenience sample of 301 adult subjects (75% female; 53% married; modal annual income $41,000 - $80,000) are as follows:

VIA Survey         Long Form      Activities      Flourishing

Long Form                 1.0                  0.55                0.43

VIA-120                    0.93                0.50                0.39

VIA-72                      0.87                0.48                0.36

Further, multiple studies have shown that the following 5 character strengths have significant correlations with measures of life satisfaction: zest, curiosity, hope, love, gratitude.  Results from the above sample are as follows:

VIA Survey      Zest     Curiosity      Hope      Love      Gratitude

Long form           0.53         0.36            0.45        0.39          0.38

VIA-120              0.57         0.41            0.47        0.41          0.44

VIA-72                0.54         0.35            0.48        0.40          0.42

The above evidence suggests to us that either of the brief versions are substantially equivalent to the original long version as to internal consistency reliability and validity measures described. 

We are offering both brief versions to researchers only in consideration of the fact that most studies involve multiple measures and that therefore some researchers may choose greater practicality for the relatively small  tradeoff in terms of psychometrics.  The VIA-120 is now offered as the standard VIA Survey – replacing the long form.

References:

Diener, E., Wirtz, D., Tov, W., Kim-Prieto, C., Choi, D., Oishi, S., & Biswas-Diener, R. (2010). New well-being measures: Short scales to assess flourishing and positive and negative feelings. Social Indicators Research, 97, 143–156.

View psychometric data for VIA Survey-240 

View 24 Character Strength Alphas for VIA Survey-240 (10-item survey)

View 24 Character Strengths Alphas for VIA Survey-72 (3-item survey)

24 Character Strength Alphas: VIA Survey-120 (5-item survey):