Psychometric characteristics of the Persian version of the Multidimensional School Anger Inventory–Revised

The Multidimensional School Anger Inventory–Revised (MSAI-R) is a measurement tool to evaluate high school students' anger. Its psychometric features have been tested in the USA, Australia, Japan, Guatemala, and Italy. This study investigates the factor structure and psychometric quality of the Persian version of the MSAI-R using data from an administration of the inventory to 585 Iranian high school students. The study adopted the four-factor underlying structure of high school student anger derived through factor analysis in previous validation studies, which consists of: School Hostility, Anger Experience, Positive Coping, and Destructive Expressions. Confirmatory factor analysis of this four-factor model indicated that it fit the data better than a one-factor baseline model, although the fit was not perfect. The Rasch model showed a very high internal consistency among items, with no item misfitting; however, our results suggest that to represent the construct sufficiently some items should be added to Positive Coping and Destructive Expression. This finding is in agreement with Boman, Curtis, Furlong, and Smith's Rasch analysis of the MSAI-R with an Australian sample. Overall, the results from this study support the psychometric features of the Persian MSAI-R. However, results from some test items also point to the dangers inherent in adapting the same test stimuli to widely divergent cultures. Keywords: angerMSAI-Rpsychometric featureschool Acknowledgements We are grateful to the four reviewers of the Asia Pacific Journal of Education for their comments that helped improve the manuscript. We are also grateful to Fredrick Meyer for his comments on an earlier version of this article. Notes An earlier version of this article was presented at the PROMS2009 Conference in Hong Kong. A Web page on Facebook entitled “Persian Multidimensional School Anger Inventory” has been created for the inventory.