Publication Date
2016
Document Type
Dissertation
Committee Members
Nathan Bowling (Committee Member), Gary Burns (Advisor), Joseph Houpt (Committee Member), David LaHuis (Committee Member)
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Abstract
Burnout is a syndrome-composed of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment-resulting from chronic stress. The Maslach Burnout Inventory - Human Services Survey (MBI-HSS; Maslach, Jackson, & Leiter, 1996) is the most popular measure of burnout. Unfortunately, the MBI-HSS has flaws including highly correlated traits and low subscale reliabilities. I tested a bifactor model for the MBI-HSS based on the work by Meszaros, Adam, Svabo, Szigeti, and Urban (2014) using item response theory. Bifactor models specify a general factor that underlies all the items within a scale and specific factors that underlie the subscale items; also, all factors are orthogonal. I found that the bifactor model had superior fit to the traditional correlated traits. A method for decomposing item and test information in multidimensional item response theory is also introduced along with a new method of displaying the test information. Finally, I provide the scoring recommendation that only the general burnout dimension for the MBI-HSS should be reported as the subscales are unreliable.
Page Count
135
Department or Program
Department of Psychology
Year Degree Awarded
2016
Copyright
Copyright 2016, some rights reserved. My ETD may be copied and distributed only for non-commercial purposes and may not be modified. All use must give me credit as the original author.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
