Undergraduate Lab Project in Personality Assessment: Measurement of Anal Character

Abstract

This article describes an undergraduate lab project in personality assessment. Ten students developed an objective measure of anal character by writing 104 items along three trait dimensions: frugality, orderliness, and obstinacy. This measure was administered to 126 “subjects” and students evaluated their respective items for internal reliability and for convergent and discriminant validity. The results indicate that the items were reasonably reliable and valid. The pedagogical value of the project is supported by the psychometric evidence that students capably measured their target traits.