The South African personality inventory : a psychometric evaluation of the Afrikaans version

Abstract

Orientation: South Africa’s cultural and linguistic diversity requires special measures to ensure that the assessments used in employment settings are scrupulously fair. To this end, Section 8 of The Employment Equity Act requires that psychometric tests are scientifically proved to be valid and reliable and not to discriminate unfairly against any individual or group. The South African Personality Inventory (SAPI) sets out to meet these criteria by incorporating culture-specific elements and by providing versions in each of South Africa’s 11 official languages. o Research purpose: The key determination of this study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the Afrikaans version of the South African Personality Inventory (SAPI). The aforementioned properties include item analysis, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), reliability analysis, product-moment correlation and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). o Motivation for the study: To contribute to the fair, valid and reliable use of the SAPI questionnaire in all language versions of the instrument by examining the psychometric properties of the Afrikaans version and comparing it with the validated English version. Once this has been done for each of the 11 official South African languages versions, a culturally neutral instrument will be available for the full diversity of employment settings in South Africa. o Research design, approach and method: This study used a quantitative cross-sectional research design with an emic approach, objectivist ontology and a post-positivist research paradigm. Primary data was collected by administering the Afrikaans version of the SAPI questionnaire to a non-probability sample of 201 purposively selected white Afrikaans-speaking South Africans who are economically and non-economically active and have a minimum qualification of Grade 12. An online Afrikaans version of the SAPI along with a biographical questionnaire was used to collect data. Item analysis was investigated by means of a descriptive statistical analysis. An initial principle component analysis followed with exploratory factor analysis was performed to determine the instrument’s factor structure. A reliability analysis was conducted in order to measure the internal consistency of the instrument. Product-moment correlations explored the relationships between variables. Further analysis was done to detect the relationships of the variables and to detect differences. Main findings: The White Afrikaners attach immense importance to the social-relational factors. From the six factors, only three factors were extracted, namely the Social-relational Positive, combined Social-relational Negative/Conscientiousness, and Intellect/Openness factors. These factors showed adequate validity and reliability. The item functionality needs to be re-evaluated in order to measure all the six factors of the SAPI and different analytical techniques should be applied. The relationships between the remaining three factors were sufficient, and only age differences were detected in the experience of Social Relational Negative/Conscientiousness o Practical/managerial implications: The results of this study provide a firm foundation for the further investigation of the validity of the Afrikaans version of the questionnaire. Furthermore, insight is given to researchers and practitioners on the need to develop, adapt or translate psychometric instruments, especially for use in an environment which is multicultural and multilingual. o Contribution/value-add: This study contributes to cultural-specific research on the assessment of personality in South Africa. Its thorough investigation and attempt to validate the Afrikaans version of the SAPI is supported by an extensive body of literature relevant to standardizing the SAPI. Practitioners and organisations will now be able to administer a culturally informed personality assessment where the home language of the employees is Afrikaans.