A computer administered version versus paper-and-pencil administered version of the MMPI-A

Within the context of a counterbalanced design, 102 students from a high school and a large university in the southeast were administered two versions of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent (MMPI-A): a computer-administered version (CA) and a paper-and-pencil version (PAP). Time between testing sessions was approximately one week. Differences in individual scale means between the CA and PAP were calculated using paired t-tests, with the Bonferroni correction procedure; no mean differences were significant (p. > .05). To determine if the scale distributions were similar, tests of homogeneity of variance were conducted using Hartley's homogeneity of variance tests; there were no differences in the shapes of the scale distributions (p. > .05). Pearson product-moment coefficients were calculated for each scale to determine if the relative rankings were similar; coefficients for every scale were positive and statistically significant (p. < .01). Implications of the findings of this study are discussed.