Internal structure of BFI-10P and BFI-15P: a complementary study with CFA and ESEM approach

The aim of this paper was to analyze the internal structure of two brief measures of personality, Big Five Inventory-15P and Big Five Inventory-10P, through SEM-CFA and ESEM, in 534 college students (77.5% females; Mage = 20.75 years) and 238 adults from general population (53.8% females; Mage = 31.75 years). The five factor model was evaluated with CFA and exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM); non-substantive competitive models were also estimated. In addition, the empirical differentiation between factors was evaluated by comparing the squared root of the average variance extracted and the interfactorial correlation. The reliability was estimated by coefficients omega and H, and we analyzed the difference between omega and alpha. The results showed that the five factors structure were better represented by the ESEM, with empirically differentiated factors. The coefficients omega and H reached acceptable magnitudes and, in some cases, they differ from alpha.