For example, test takers may experience either increasing item difficulty at the end of the test due to fatigue or decreasing item difficulty due to test-wiseness as they become more familiar with the content (Hohensinn et al. 2008).
As expected, the reliability values were decreased with decreasing item numbers but highest for the GSI of the SCL-90-R and its short versions.
It is theorized that decreased item-specific encoding and increased gist encoding contribute to these age differences in memory performance.
A review of numerous studies concluded that reducing items from four options to three options decreases item difficulty (.04), increases item discrimination (.03), and also increases reliability (.02) [ 29].
The first factor (factor I) accounting for 23.8% of the scale variance, was composed of 8 items: depressed affect (item 1), crying spells (item 3), decreased libido (item 6), hopelessness (item 14), personal devaluation (item 17), emptiness (item 18), suicidal rumiation (item 19) and dissatisfaction (item 20).
Finally, factor IV, accounting for 3.5% of variance, consisted of 3 items: decreased appetite (item 5), weight loss (item 7) and tachycardia (item 9).
Our study included items of the CORS representing the following coping styles related to pain: comforting cognitions (nine items), decreasing activity (eight items), and diverting attention (eight items).
This study suggests a simple dietary strategy, decreasing food-item size without having to alter the portion size offered, may reduce energy intake at snacking occasions.
Results showed that decreasing the item size of candies led participants to decrease by half their gram weight intake, resulting in an energy intake decrease of 60 kcal compared to the other group.
Here we adopted the adjusting rule that the larger sum is adjusted to the smaller sum by decreasing each item proportionally.
