This completely revised and updated test assesses self-esteem in a culturally fair manner. The CFSEI-3 is a set of self-report inventories used to determine the level of self-esteem in students ages 6-0 through 18-11. Three new age-appropriate forms were developed: Primary, Intermediate, and Adolescent. All three forms of the inventory provide a Global Self-Esteem Quotient (GSEQ). The Intermediate and Adolescent Forms provide self-esteem scores in 4 areas: Academic, General, Parental/Home, and Social. The Adolescent Form provides an additional self-esteem score: Personal Self-Esteem. A defensive measure is also provided to assess the extent to which an examinee's responses are guarded.
The CFSEI-3 is easy to administer and score. It can be administered to individuals or groups in 15 to 20 minutes each. Responses (simple yes-or-no answers) can be either written or spoken. New, easy-to-use Profile/Scoring Forms are now included. Conversion tables provide subscale standard scores based on a mean of 10 and a standard deviation of 3 and quotient scores based on a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15. The CFSEI-3 was standardized on a sample of 1,727 persons from 17 states. The normative group was stratified on the basis of geographic region, gender, race, rural or urban residence, ethnicity, family income, parent education, and disability. The demographic characteristics match those projected for the school-age population in the year 2000 by the U.S. Bureau of the Census (1999).
Reliability of the CFSEI-3 was investigated using estimates of content sampling and time sampling. For GSEQ scores, average internal consistency coefficients range from .81 to .93; time sampling coefficients range from .72 to .98.
Validity of the CFSEI-3 was investigated using content, criterion-prediction, and construct-identification validity. The CFSEI-3 correlates strongly with other measures of self-esteem and self-concept. Many new studies demonstrating the cultural fairness of the CFSEI-3 have been added, including Differential Item Functioning analyses and separate reliability and validity information for seven subgroups (male, female, European American, African American, Hispanic American, gifted and talented, and learning disabled). In addition, a full chapter in the Examiner's Manual is devoted to the test's bias.