Psychometric Properties

Reliability

Since the items on an incomplete sentence blank are not equivalent, the odd even

technique for determining reliability is not applicable and would tend to give minimum estimate

of internal consistency. Therefore, items on the ISB were divided into two halves deemed as

nearly equivalent as possible. This yielded a corrected split-half reliability of .84 when based on

the records of 124 male college students, and .83 when based on 71 female students. Inter-scorer

reliability for two scorers trained by the authors was .91 when based on male records and .96 for

female records.

Validity

The Incomplete Sentences Blank was validated on groups of subjects which did not

include any of the cases used in the production of score concepts and score manuals. Scoring the

blanks was done "blindly" the scorer never knew if the blank test was supposed to be an ill-

adjusted or an adjusted subject. Validity data were collected separately for both sexes as the

score manuals vary. The subjects included 82 females and 124 males who were listed as either

adjusted or ill-adjusted, i.e., in need of personal advice or in need of other advice. Despite

overlap, the ISB cut-off score of 135 will correctly classify 78% of the adjusted cases and 59%

of the ill-adjusted cases. Compared to other projective tests, sentence completion tests have been

identified as one of the most valid of the SCTs, the RISB has the clear evidence supporting its

use in the diagnosis and adjustment assessment.