Abstract
Irrationality refers to human thoughts and beliefs that signify lack of rationality and entail erroneous perceptions about situational, personal, or collective idiosyncrasies, while it is independent of one’s intellectual ability. Irrational beliefs are ubiquitous in all social and cultural groups and attract a special interest in behavioral sciences, where the primary concern is the development of instruments for identifying and measuring them. The present study evaluates the psychometric properties of Greek version of Teachers’ Irrational Belief Scale (TIBS-G), a 25-item self-reported instrument using data collected from 835 participants. The exploratory procedure, implementing scree plot with parallel analysis, demonstrated the dimensionality of four factors, namely: Self-downing (SD), Authoritarianism (A), Demands for Justice (DJ), and Low Frustration Tolerance (LT). The corresponding reliability measures using Cronbach’s alpha and McDonald’s omega were ranged between 0.70 and 0.80. Subsequently, confirmatory factor analysis showed an adequate fit of the measurement model [χ2 = 579.98, df = 183, p < 0.001; CFI = 0.960; TLI = 0.956; RMSEA = 0.051]. In addition, measurement invariance was performed, which demonstrated differences between genders. Finally, discussion on the importance of irrational beliefs and the possible implementation of the TIBS instrument in educational research is provided.
Highlights
IntroductionThe irrational thoughts affect cognitive processes, decisionmaking and farther human behavior, while they are associated with emotional states such as frustration and anxiety [1,2]
The first Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) run showed that four items (SD22, SD23, A2, A19) did not conform to the initially proposed structure demonstrating multiple or low factor loadings
confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) results for the single-factor model are χ2 = 1815.20, df = 275, p < 0.001, comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.891, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.082, SRMR = 0.088, NFI = 0.874, the proposed four-dimensional model fitted satisfactorily to the empirical data possessing the following fit measure indices: χ2 = 579.98, df = 183, p < 0.001; CFI = 0.960; TLI = 0.956; RMSEA = 0.051; 90% CI of RMSEA = [0.046; 0.056]; SRMR = 0.058; NFI = 0.942; GFI = 0.974
Summary
The irrational thoughts affect cognitive processes, decisionmaking and farther human behavior, while they are associated with emotional states such as frustration and anxiety [1,2]. They are often characterized as dysfunctional beliefs or dysfunctional myths, which manifest themselves under various situations and in different forms [3]. Researchers have shown a special interest in studying them and have attempted to develop means for identifying and measuring those thoughts. Irrationality, as manifested by human mind is not an easy issue to theoretically define and empirically measure
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