A network psychometric validation of the Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI) questionnaire for a South Australian population

Objective To validate the psychometric properties of the Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI) for a South Australian population. The TIPI is a brief measure of the Five Factor Model of personality widely applied internationally and locally but not yet validated for an Australian population.Method Data from the 2015 Dental Care and Oral Health Study, with 4,139 adults completing the TIPI. In the training set, ceiling/floor effects, network estimation, item redundancy and dimensionality via Exploratory Graph Analysis (EGA) were examined. In the test set, model fit and internal consistency reliability (McDonald’s omega) were evaluated.Results Analysis revealed no substantial floor or ceiling effects. Redundancy analysis indicated minor overlap, with one meaningful redundancy between conscientiousness items TIPI-3 and TIPI-8 (wTO = 0.216) informing a composite-item solution. EGA supported a two-dimensional composite-item structure with good structural consistency (~99.0%) and item stability (100%). Model fit was good (χ2 (10) = 39.86, CFI = 0.99, RMSEA = 0.038). McDonald’s Omega was lower than recommended (≥0.70), as expected for such a short scale (Plasticity Ω = 0.62; Stability Ω = 0.65).Conclusion The TIPI demonstrated good psychometric properties for a South Australian population and plays a fundamental role in large-scale studies requiring brief personality assessment.