Abstract
Impulsiveness scale for secondary school students has been standardized on the sample of 250 students of secondary school. There is no recent Indian standardized impulsiveness scale available for secondary school students. Hence, the need to develop and standardize impulsiveness scale for secondary school students is felt. Initially 72 items were prepared. After taking judgment of different experts from the department of Education and Psychology, 24 items were deleted. A sample of 200 students from secondary schools was selected for item analysis of the 48 items. After item analysis only 27 items were left. Finally, the scale was conducted on 250 secondary school students and a reliability of 0.86 was obtained by Kuder-Richardson formula. Content validity for the present scale was ensured. The scale was found to be highly reliable and valid.
Key words: Impulsiveness, Secondary School Students.
INTRODUCTION
Impulsiveness is a personality trait which includes quick and impulsive behaviour, risk taking activities, lack of emotional control, non-planning, liveliness and hyper-activity. As everyone recognizes that personality characteristics do have some influence on individual behaviour. Persons possessing different types of personality behave in a totally different manner. For example, the persons who are introverts do not easily engage in social activities. Conversely, an extrovert person attempts to develop new relationships with others. In case of impulsive trait also, people who are highly impulsive may behave differently as compared to low impulsive and moderately impulsive subjects. According to Barratt (1972) ‘Impulsiveness’ however, defined, is essentially related to the control of thoughts and behaviour. According to Corsini (1999) ‘Impulsiveness’ is a type of behaviour characterized by the inclination of an individual to act on impulse rather than thoughts. Impulsivity typically refers to “behaviour that incorporates a component of rashness, lack of foresight or planning or as a behaviour that occurs without reflection or careful deliberation. From the perspective of psychology, impulsivity is at least a two-factor construct labeled “reward sensitivity” and “rash-spontaneous impulsiveness.”
REVIEW OF THE RELATED STUDIES
White, et.al. (1994) examined various behavioural measures of impulsivity. Andreu and Fabia (2005 showed an inverse relationship between impulsivity and intelligence. Parren, et.al. (2006) reported high impulsivity/ inattention were related to sociometric rejection, but not acceptance. Wilson (2006) found that children who were labeled by their peers as aggressive-rejected were more impulsive than non-aggressive popular children. Gregory (2007) focused on impulsivity control, a trait measure of the self control construct, its relationship to self regulated learning and its importance to students’ academic achievement. Miksza (2007) showed that impulsiveness, venturesomeness, and mastery approach motivation were significant predictors of performance achievement. Gomes & Livesey (2008), Luengo (2008) & Your session will time out in 5 minutes.
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Campbell & Muncer (2009) conducted studies on impulsivity and antisocial behavior. Barratt (2010) suggested that anxiety tends to inhibit impulsiveness in some instances.
PLANNING OF THE SCALE
Planning of a scale evokes decisions about sub-units of the content, type of questions and the relative weightage to various aspects of the content. In view of these considerations, proper planning for constructing the items was done. To begin with, various books, journals and articles dealing with impulsiveness were consulted. A list of various components of impulsiveness was thought out. These components were assembled into five broad categories. The following broad categories were identified as representing impulsiveness.
- Narrow meaning of impulsiveness: This component of impulsiveness includes acting on the spur of the moment, no consideration for future consequences, quick behaviour such as quick to move, quick to make-up mind, quick to voice opinion, rapid decision and action, short reaction time, lack of reflectiveness and lack of self-control etc.
- Risk taking and sensation seeking: This includes daring and risk taking behaviour, excitement and seeking sensations etc.
- Lack of planning: It comprises of lack of fore-thought, lack of planning, readiness to begin work without a carefully constructed plan, and need of a lot of supervision etc.
- Liveliness and carefreeness: It consists of carefreeness, taking life easily, happy-go lucky and living in the present etc.
- Hyperactivity: It pertains to restiessness, overactiveness, excessive motor activity and low frustration tolerance etc.
DOMAINS OF THE SCALE
The present scale consists of three domains which are as follows:
- Cognitive Impulsiveness
- Non planning Impulsiveness
- Motor Impulsiveness
FIRST TRY OUT
In the first try out, initially, the questionnaire consisted of 72 items were checked by researchers herself, experts from the department of Education & Psychology. On the basis of experts suggestions and comments, 24 items were deleted. The questionnaire which was ready for second tryout and item analysis contains 48 items.
ITEM ANALYSIS AND SECOND TRY OUT
Item analysis is a set of procedures that is applied to know the indices for the truthfulness (or validity) of items. In other words item analysis is a technique through which those items which were valid and suited to the purpose were selected and the rest were either eliminated or modified to suit the purpose. For this, firstly, scale consisted of 48 items were given to the 200 secondary school students. The filled scale then arranged in an ascending order i.e., from high scorer scale to the low scorer scale. Then the 200 answer sheets were divided into three groups i.e., 27% upper, 46% middle and 27% lower. Then discriminating index and difficulty index were drawn for selecting the items.
Try out: – Only 27 items were left after item analysis. These 27 items were taken for the final draft to draw reliability. To draw out reliability, 250 secondary school students were taken from different schools of Aligarh.
PROCEDURE OF SCALE ADMINISTRATION
This scale can be administered in individual and small group condition. There is no time limit but normally people take 30 minutes to answer all items of the scale. The scale is of yes and no type. After proper instructions, scale is distributed among the Students and responses are indicated by putting a tick mark (Ö) on the yes or no which is given against every item.
Scoring Procedure: The responses obtained in the form of tick marks (Ö) on 27 items of impulsiveness scale are quantified. The response indicating impulsiveness is scored as 1 and response indicating no impulsiveness is scored as 0. The score obtained from impulsiveness scale range between 0 to 27.
Table 1: showing the items with their discriminating index (d.i) and difficulty value (d.v) in terms of percentages.
| ITEM NO. | D.I | D.V | ITEM NO. | D.I | D.V | ITEM NO. | D.I | D.V |
| 1 | 7.40 | 10 | 17 | 48.14 | 15 | 33 | 14.81 | 8 |
| 2 | 37.03 | 14 | 18* | 27.77 | 39.5 | 34* | 31.48 | 25.5 |
| 3 | 22.22 | 6 | 19* | 27.77 | 37.5 | 35 | 14.81 | 8 |
| 4* | 35.15 | 25 | 20* | 37.03 | 26 | 36* | 29.62 | 28 |
| 5 | 29.92 | 8 | 21* | 27.77 | 27.5 | 37* | 25.92 | 31 |
| 6* | 33.33 | 25 | 22 | 14.81 | 24 | 38 | 14.81 | 4 |
| 7* | 25.92 | 25 | 23* | 44.44 | 26 | 39 | 0 | 16 |
| 8 | 37.03 | 10 | 24* | 51.85 | 26 | 40 | 37.03 | 18 |
| 9* | 25.92 | 27 | 25* | 29.62 | 40 | 41 | 22.22 | 10 |
| 10* | 51.85 | 26 | 26 | 0 | 0 | 42* | 44.00 | 28 |
| 11* | 66.66 | 26 | 27* | 29.62 | 34 | 43 | 7.40 | 4 |
| 12* | 25.92 | 37 | 28 | 22.22 | 6 | 44* | 44.00 | 32 |
| 13* | 51.85 | 34 | 29* | 40.74 | 27 | 45* | 29.62 | 44 |
| 14* | 51.85 | 26 | 30* | 37.03 | 26 | 46 | 14.81 | 8 |
| 15 | 29.62 | 12 | 31 | 22.00 | 6 | 47 | 44.00 | 12 |
| 16* | 51.85 | 26 | 32* | 66.66 | 28 | 48 | 22.00 | 14 |
*The items showing stars have been accepted and the items which are not showing stars have been deleted.
Table 2: Scoring Table
| Item Number | Yes (Score) | No (Score) | Item Number | Yes (Score) | No (Score) |
| 1 | 0 | 1 | 15 | 0 | 1 |
| 2 | 1 | 0 | 16 | 0 | 1 |
| 3 | 0 | 1 | 17 | 1 | 0 |
| 4 | 1 | 0 | 18 | 0 | 1 |
| 5 | 1 | 0 | 19 | 1 | 0 |
| 6 | 0 | 1 | 20 | 0 | 1 |
| 7 | 0 | 1 | 21 | 0 | 1 |
| 8 | 1 | 0 | 22 | 0 | 1 |
| 9 | 0 | 1 | 23 | 0 | 1 |
| 10 | 1 | 0 | 24 | 1 | 0 |
| 11 | 1 | 0 | 25 | 1 | 0 |
| 12 | 1 | 0 | 26 | 1 | 0 |
| 13 | 0 | 1 | 27 | 1 | 0 |
| 14 | 1 | 0 |
| Items score from 1-0 | 2,4,5,8,10,11,12,14,17,19,24,25,26,27 |
| Items score from 0-1 | 1,3,6,7,9,13,15,16,18,20,21,22,23 |
Table 3: Showing Domains-Wise Items Serials
| S.no | Domain | Item No. | Total Items |
| 1 | Cognitive impulsiveness | 1,3,5,8,10,12,17,22,24 | 9 |
| 2 | Non-planning impulsiveness | 6,9,13,15,19,21,26 | 7 |
| 3 | Motor impulsiveness | 2,4,7,11,14,16,18,20,23,25,27 | 11 |
| total | 27 |
RELIABILITY
A reliability co-efficient of 0.86 was obtained by Kuder-Richardson formula (1939). Following simplified Kuder-Richardson formula was used.
VALIDITY
The validity may be defined as the accuracy with which it measures what it purports to measure. To ascertain the validity of our scale, we gathered the opinions of experts from the department of Education and Psychology. In the light of their valuable opinions, we retained only the valid, relevant and meaningful questions, as they could serve to draw out valuable data from the respondent. In this way content validity of the scale was ensured and hence the scale is supposed to be a valid one.
IMPULSIVENESS CLASSIFICATION
23 and above : Very High Impulsive
18-22 : High Impulsive
13-17 : Moderate Impulsive
8-12 : Low Impulsive
7 and below : Very Low Impulsive
USE OF THE SCALE
This scale can be used for girls and boys (both) at secondary level.
REFERENCES
Andrew, V & Fabia, M (2005). How impulsivity is related to intelligence and academic achievement. Spanish Journal of psychology. Vol 8(2), 199-204.
Barratt, E.E. (1972). Anxiety and impulsiveness: Towards a neuropsychological model. In C. spielberger, education, Anxiety: current trends in theory & research. New York: Academic Press.
Barratt, E.E. (2010). Anxiety and impulsiveness related to psychomotor efficiency. Perceptual and motor skills. A.P.A. Vol. 9(2).
Campbell, A., & Muncer, S. (2009). Can ‗risky‘ impulsivity explain sex differences in aggression? Personality and Individual Differences, 47, 402-406. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2009.04.006
Corsini,R.J. ( 1999 ). The dictionary of psychology, Psychology Press, ISBN 158391028X, pp. 476.
Gomes. L &Livesey.D (2008). Exploring the link between impulsivity and peer relations in 5- and 6-year-old children. Child Care Health Dev. School of Psychology, University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 34(6):763-70.
Gregory,D.A. (2007). Impulsivity control and self regulated learning. Ph.d southern Illinois Univ. at Carbondale. D.A.I. Vol.68. No. 9. pp.226.
Luengo,M.A. (2008). A short term longitudinal study of impulsivity and anti social behaviour. Journal of personality and social psychology. Vol.66(3). pp. 542-548.
Miksza,P. (2007). Relationship among impulsivity, achievement goal motivation, practice behaviour, and the performance achievement of high school wind players. Ph.d. Indiana Univ. Dissertation abstract international, Vol.68, No. 7. pp.272.
Parren,S.;Vonwyl,A.;Stadelmann,S. & Burgin,D. (2006). Association between behavioural /emotional difficulties in kindergarten children and the quality of their peer relationships. Journal of American child adolescent psychiatry. Vol.45. 867-876.
Richardson, M. W. and Kuder, G. F. (1939). The calculation of test reliability coefficients based upon the method of rational equivalence. J. Educ. Psychol., Vol. 30, pp. 681-687. As cited in Guilford, J. P. (1956). Fundamental Statistics in Psychology and Education. McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., New York, pp. 454-456.
White, J.L., Moffitt, T.E., Caspi, A., Bartusch, D.J., Needles, D.J., & Stouthamer- Loeber, M. (1994). Measuring impulsivity and examining its relationship to delinquency. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 103, 192-205. doi:10.1037/0021-843X.103.2.192
Wilson,B.J. (2006). The entry behaviour of aggressive/rejected children: The contributions of status and temperament. Social development, 15, 463-479.
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[1] Associate Professor, Department of Education, AMU, Aligarh-202002, Mob: 9997136966
