An Item Response Theory to Analyze the Psychological Impacts of Rail-Transport Delay

Exploring the measurement of psychological resilience in Chinese civil aviation pilots based on generalizability theory and item response theory

Understanding and accurately measuring resilience among Chinese civil aviation pilots is imperative, especially concerning the psychological impact of distressing events on their well-being and aviation safety. Despite the necessity, a validated and tailored measurement tool specific to this demographic is absent. Addressing this gap, this study built on the widely used CD-RISC-25 to analyze and modify its applicability to Chinese civil aviation pilots. Utilizing CD-RISC-25 survey data from 231 Chinese pilots, correlational and differential analyses identified items 3 and 20 as incongruent with this population's resilience profile. Subsequently, factor analysis derived a distinct two-factor resilience psychological framework labeled "Decisiveness" and "Adaptability", which diverged from the structure found in American female pilots and the broader Chinese populace. Additionally, to further accurately identify the measurement characteristics of this 2-factor measurement model, this study introduced Generalized Theory and Item Response Theory, two modern measurement analysis theories, to comprehensively analyze the overall reliability of the measurement and issues with individual items. Results showed that the 2-factor model exhibited high reliability, with generalizability coefficient reaching 0.89503 and dependability coefficient reaching 0.88496, indicating the 2-factor measurement questionnaire can be effectively utilized for relative and absolute comparison of Chinese civil aviation pilot resilience. However, items in Factor 2 provided less information and have larger room for optimization than those in Factor 1, implying item option redesign may be beneficial. Consequently, this study culminates in the creation of a more accurate and reliable two-factor psychological resilience measurement tool tailored for Chinese civil aviation pilots, while exploring directions for optimization. By facilitating early identification of individuals with lower resilience and enabling the evaluation of intervention efficacy, this tool aims to positively impact pilot psychological health and aviation safety in the context of grief and trauma following distressing events.

Application of Item Response Theory (IRT)-Graded Response Model (GRM) to Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Scale

The scale of entrepreneurial ecosystems (EE) assesses the perceptions about entrepreneurial ecosystem domains, finances, capital finances, support, support professions, policies, markets, human resources, and culture. The scales are always error-prone—these scales must possess properties that enable them it to provide maximum information and validity reliability. Convenient sampling data from (n = 474) founders, co-founders, and entrepreneurs were collected. The IRT-GRM model is used to validate and test the instrument-based on polytomous scales. IRT yields discriminating power—the level of difficulty of the items of the scale. The scale consists of 48 items. The item Pol5 (4.13) was found to have the highest discriminating value (4.13), the item mar5 had the lowest discriminating value (1.57), and all items had discriminating values greater than the threshold value of 0.60. The EE Scale showed good reliability based on McDonald’s omega and Cronbach’s alpha (0.80 and 0.88). The parallel and factor analysis showed good agreement of the one-dimesnionality of the scale. The model goodness of fit statistics based on the comparative fit index (CFI) and the Tucker–Lewis index, (TLI) and the standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) showed a satisfactory level of fit; however, the root mean square error of approximation (RMSE) showed a poor fit. The item characteristic curves showed that the all item responses were properly ordered. The items of the scale showed a satisfactory level of discrimination power and level of difficulty, and it was found to have three levels of agreement about entrepreneurial ecosystem scale. It is concluded that the EE scale possesses good psychometric properties and that it is reliable and valid instrument to measure the entrepreneurial ecosystem of the given region.

Properties of a Transport Instrument for Measuring Psychological Impacts of Delay on Commuters, Mokken Scale Analysis

This study assessed the validity of instrument including various negative psychological and physical behaviors of commuters due to the public transport delay. Instruments have been mostly evaluated by parametric method of item response theory (IRT). However, the IRT has been characterized by some restrictive assumptions about the data, focusing on detailed model fit evaluation. The Mokken scale analysis (MSA), as a scaling procedure is a non-parametric method, which does not require adherence to any distribution. The results of the study show that in most regards, our instrument meets the minimum requirements highlighted by the MSA. However, the instrument did not adhere to the minimum requirements of the "scalability" for two variables including "stomach pain" and "increased heart rate". So, modifications were proposed to address the violations. Although MSA technique has been used frequently in other fields, this is one of the earliest studies to implement the technique in the context of transport psychology.