Validity of the College Maladjustment Scale for identification of distressed students

Construct Validity of the MMPI-2 College Maladjustment (Mt) Scale

The construct validity of the MMPI-2 (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2) College Maladjustment (Mt) Scale was examined using 376 student clients at a university psychological clinic. A principal components analysis and correlations of Mt scale scores with clients’ and therapists’ ratings of symptoms and functioning showed that the Mt scale identifies the presence of maladjustment as defined in terms of depressive and anxious symptoms. There is no evidence to show that the scale is specific to college students or that it is sensitive to severe psychological disturbance. The Mt scale does not inform the clinician as to why a person is distressed. In addition, there is no evidence from this study to suggest the superiority of the Mt scale over other MMPI-2 maladjustment measures. Therapists should use the entire MMPI-2 profile, not just the Mt scale, to gain the most comprehensive and specific understanding of clients.

Psychometric properties and predictive validity of the Mt Scale of the MMPI-2

The College Maladjustment (Mt) Scale is a 41-item supplementary scale of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. It was designed to identify college students classified as maladjusted. Very little research has been conducted on the Mt Scale in the 40 years since its inception. The current study had the following four goals: (a) provide additional data on the internal consistency reliability, (b) examine the relationship between Mt Scale scores and various school-related domains, (c) examine the relationship between Mt scores and indices of distress (trauma exposure, post-traumatic stress disorder [PTSD] symptoms, and history of psychological treatment), and (d) examine the diagnostic accuracy of cutting scores across the full spectrum of possible scores using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses. The Mt Scale is relatively internally consistent (alpha = .85). Elevations on the Mt Scale were significantly associated with lower current grade point average, arriving late to classes more often, the PTSD symptoms of avoidance and arousal, and a history of treatment. Last, the findings from the ROC analyses suggest that the previously obtained cutting scores of 15 and 22 are too low and that values of 29 or higher are more likely to yield the best diagnostic utility values.

Assessing general maladjustment with the MMPI-2

The validities of 7 MMPI-2 (Butcher, Graham, Ben-Porath, Tellegen, & Kaemmer, 2001) measures of general maladjustment were compared using a composite criterion measure based on self-reported symptom severity and clinicians' ratings of symptom severity and level of functioning. Participants were 274 male and 425 female clients at a community mental health center and 105 male and 247 female clients at a university psychological clinic. All MMPI-2 measures were significantly related to the composite criterion measure for both male and female clients in both settings. The mean score on 8 clinical scales (M8) consistently was the best indicator of maladjustment. Although other MMPI-2 measures sometimes added significantly to the variance accounted for in the criterion measure, increments were small and probably not clinically meaningful. However, M8 added significantly and meaningfully to each of the other MMPI-2 measures in predicting maladjustment. Implications for using the MMPI-2 to assess general maladjustment in outpatient mental health settings are discussed.