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Item Response Theory Analysis of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire and Its Short Forms

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Abstract

Objectives

The Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) is a self-report measure of mindfulness with forms of several different lengths, including the FFMQ-39, FFMQ-24, and FFMQ-15. We use item response theory analysis to directly compare the functioning of these three forms.

Methods

Data were drawn from a non-clinical Amazon Mechanical Turk study (N = 522) and studies of aftercare treatment of individuals with substance use disorders (combined N = 454). The item and test functioning of the three FFMQ forms were studied and compared.

Results

All 39 items were strongly related to the facet latent variables, and the items discriminated over a similar range of the latent mindfulness constructs. Items provided more information in the low-to-medium range of latent mindfulness than in the high range. Scores in three of the five FFMQ-39 facets were unreliable when measuring individuals in the high range of latent mindfulness, resulting from ceiling effects in item responses. Reliability in the high range of mindfulness was further reduced in the FFMQ-24 and FFMQ-15, such that short forms may be ill-suited for applications that require reliable measurement in the high range.

Conclusions

Results suggest the existing FFMQ item pool cannot be reduced without negatively affecting either overall reliability or the span of mindfulness over which reliability is assessed. Conditional test reliability curves and item functioning parameters can aid investigators in tailoring their choice of FFMQ form to the reliability they hope to achieve and to the range of latent mindfulness over which they must reliably measure.

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Funding

Data for the primary sample were collected via a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) (UH2 DA041713). Data for the replication sample were collected via grants from NIDA (R21 DA010562 and R01 DA025764). Additional support was provided by the NIDA (P30 DA029926, R37 DA009757), the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (F31 AA026768), and the National Science Foundation (DGE-1311230). The content of this article is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of any of the funding agencies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 85281, USA

    William E. Pelham III & David P. Mackinnon

  2. Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA

    Oscar Gonzalez

  3. Department of Psychiatry, Dartmouth College, Lebanon, NH, 03766, USA

    Stephen A. Metcalf, Cady L. Whicker, Emily A. Scherer & Lisa A. Marsch

  4. Center on Alcoholism, Substance Abuse, and Addictions, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 87131, USA

    Katie Witkiewitz

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  1. William E. Pelham III
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Contributions

LM and DM designed and executed the study from which data for primary sample were drawn. KW designed and executed the larger study from which data for secondary sample were drawn. WP, OG, and DM conceptualized the current research question and planned analyses. WP and OG carried out analyses and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. SM, CW, ES, KW, LM, and DP critically reviewed and revised the manuscript. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript for submission.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to William E. Pelham III.

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Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. IRB approval for the primary sample study was received at Stanford University. IRB approval for the secondary sample studies was received at University of Washington.

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Informed consent/assent was obtained from all participants in this study.

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Pelham III, W.E., Gonzalez, O., Metcalf, S.A. et al. Item Response Theory Analysis of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire and Its Short Forms. Mindfulness 10, 1615–1628 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-019-01105-x

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