A Review of 3 Relationship Adjustment and Satisfaction

Assessment Instruments

Three Instruments Reviewed

• Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS): Spanier, 1976

- Self-report measure of relationship adjustment/dissatisfaction

• Relationship Assessment Scale (RAS): Hendrick, 1988

- Measure of global relationship satisfaction• Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale (KMSS):

Schumm et. al., 1983

- Measure of relationship satisfaction

Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS): Overview

• Developed by: Graham Spanier, PhD

• Targeted Population: 

Married/Cohabitating/Homosexual/Divorced adults

• Administration Time: 5-10 minutes

• Administration Type: Self-report

• Reliability: Cronbach’s Alpha: (.76-.96)

• Formats: Hand Scored – Likert Scale

Dyadic Assessment Scale: Description

• 32-item measure of relationship quality– 4 subscales

• Dyadic Consensus• Dyadic Satisfaction• Dyadic Cohesion• Affectional Expression

• DAS and the 4 subscales are internally consistent• The DAS measures more than just relationship quality• Responses captured via Likert Scale

Dyadic Adjustment Scale: Research

• Purpose: Develop an abbreviated form of DAS using IRT

• Method: The sample consisted of 2,153 couples who had been

married or cohabitating. The participants were given the 32 item comprehensive list of potential events that can occur in a couple’s relationship

• Instruments: DAS -32, DAS - 4

• Results: Internal Reliability: Cronbach’s Alpha: (>.81) for all levels of couple distress. (>.92) for non-distressed couples

Relationship Assessment Scale: Overview

• Developed by: Hendrick, 1988

• Targeted Population: Married/cohabitating/dating/engaged adult

couples

• Administration Time: 5 to 10 minutes

• Administration Type: Self-report

• Reliability: Cronbach’s Alpha: (.70-.95)

• Formats: Hand Scored – Likert Scale

Relationship Assessment Scale (RAS): Description

•7-item measure of global relationship satisfaction•Based on earlier used 5-item measure for marital satisfaction•Useful for anyone in an intimate relationship

–Dating, cohabitating, engaged

•Responses captured via Likert Scale•Higher scores indicate greater relationship satisfaction

Relationship Assessment Scale (RAS): Research

• Purpose: Find correlation between RAS and DAS

• Method:  118 participants, predominately Caucasian. Internal

consistencies of RAS total scores, DAS total scores, and DAS subscale scores were calculated. High correlations indicated that further analyses on the subscales was justified.

• Instruments: RAS & DAS

• Results: Coefficient alpha for total scores – (.91)– Interitem correlations range from .35 - .80

Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale: Overview

• Developed By: Schumm et. al. (1973)

• Targeted Population: Married/Cohabitating couples

• Administration Time: 3-5Minutes

• Administration Type: Self-report

• Reliability: Cronbach’s Alpha : (.84-.98)

• Formats: Hand Scored-Paper and Pencil

Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale: Description

• Self report questionnaire that assesses marital satisfaction• Consists of three questions• Quick, inexpensive assessment to measure marital

satisfaction• Test—retest correlations of .71 are reported over a 10-week

interval and ranged from .62 - .72 over six months

Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale:Description

• Total score of 17 or above indicates the individual/couple is nondistressed

• Total score of 16 or below indicates some degree of marital distress

• The lower the score, the greater the marital distress• The Kansas Marital Satisfaction (KMS) Scale is found to correlate

substantially with both Spanier's (1976) Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS) and Norton's (1983) Quality Marriage Index (QMI)

Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale: Research

• Purpose: Comparing current scores to those collected in the 1980’s study

• Method:  Different versions of the Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale (KMSS) were administered with five and seven-point responses to 154 Army personnel

• Instruments: KMSS, 5 and 7 response formats. Marital Stability Scale

• Results: High internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha > .95) was obtained using both types of response format. Both versions of the KMSS also correlated substantially with a measure of marital instability. Scores on the KMSS strongly predicted categories of soldiers indicating their marriage was not “in trouble,” “was in trouble,” or they would be getting divorce

References

• Baier, M. E. M., Vaughn M. J. (1999). Reliability and Validity of the Relationship Assessment Scale. American Journal of Family Therapy, 27, 2, 137-147

• Hendrick, S. S. (1988). A generic measure of relationship satisfaction. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 50, 93–98

• Lussier, Y., Sabourin, S., Valois, P. (2005). Development and Validation of a Brief Version of the Dyadic Adjustment Scale With a

Nonparametric Item Analysis Model . Psychological Assessment, 17, 1, 15-27

• Schumm, W. A., Nichols, C. W., Schectman, K. L., & Grigsby, C. C. (1983).

Characteristics of responses to the Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale by a sample of 84 married mothers. Psychological Reports, 53, 567– 572

• Schumm, W. R., et. al. (2008). Reliability and Validity of The Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale With Different Response Formats in a Recent Sample of U.S. Army Personnel. Individual Differences Research. 6, 26-37.

References Cont’d.

• Schumm, W. R., Jurich, A.P., and Boliman, S.R. (1990). Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale. In J Touliatos, B. F. Perimutter, and M.A. Straus (Eds.), Handbook of family measurement techniques. Sage: Newbury Park, CA

• Spanier, G. B. (1976). Measuring dyadic adjustment: New scales for assessing the quality of marriage and similar dyads. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 38, 15–28