Abstract
Background: Telephone cognitive batteries are useful for large-scale screening and epidemiological studies, but their brevity and lack of content depth may cause psychometric limitations that hinder their utility. Objective: The current study addressed some of these limitations by rescaling the Brief Test of Adult Cognition by Telephone (BTACT; Tun & Lachman, 2006) using modern psychometric methods. Methods: Archival data were obtained from a national sample of 4,212 28 to 84-year-old volunteers in the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (Ryff et al., 2007) Cognitive Project (Ryff & Lachman, 2007). We fit a bi-factor model to a combination of item-level, subscale-level, and scale-level data. Results: The best fitting model contained a general factor and secondary factors capturing test-specific method effects or residual correlations for Number Series, Red/Green Test, and the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test. Factor scores generated from this model were compared with conventional BTACT scores. Important score differences (i.e., >0.3 standard deviation units) were found in 28% of the sample. The bi-factor scores demonstrated slightly superior validity than conventional BTACT scores when judged against a number of clinical and demographic criterion variables. Conclusions: Modern psychometric approaches to scoring the BTACT have the benefit of linear scaling and a modest criterion validity advantage.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 253-265 |
Number of pages | 13 |
Journal | NeuroRehabilitation |
Volume | 32 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2013 |
Keywords
- Telephone
- bi-factor model
- cognitive assessment
- modern psychometrics
- neuropsychology