Affiliations: [a] Department of Psychology, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, Colorado Springs, CO, USA | [b] Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA | [c] Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA
Correspondence:
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Address for correspondence: Brandon E. Gavett, Department of Psychology, 1420 Austin Bluffs Parkway, Colorado Springs, CO 80918, USA. Tel.: +1 719 255 4135; Fax: +1 719 255 4166; E-mail: bgavett@uccs.edu
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.
Keywords: Telephone, cognitive assessment, modern psychometrics, bi-factor model, neuropsychology
