Communication styles inventory-brief version (CSI-BV): Preliminary validation among romanian students

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The study aims to validate and analyse the psychometric properties of the Communication Styles Inventory-Brief Version (CSI-BV) in the case of a sample of a Romanian student population. The instrument that assesses the interactive communication styles was translated and adapted through the forward-backward translation procedure. The data were collected from 630 students (Meanage=21.22; 51.45% males). In order to investigate and confirm the factor structure, the sample was split into two sub-samples which were the subject of exploratory (EFA) and confirmatory (CFA) factor analyses, respectively. The CSI-BV reliability was examined from the perspective of internal consistency. The concurrent validity was conducted by associating CSI-BV with the instrument BFI-10 which assesses the personality traits based on the Big Five model. In the case of the analysed sample, both the EFA and the CFA (χ²/df=1.13; CFI=0.99; RMSEA=0.017; SRMR=0.059) support a five-factor structure of the instrument, different from the original three-factor structure, that suggests the presence of the following styles: emotional, dominant, seductive, flattering and interrogative. The internal consistency, measured for the two sub-samples as well as for the total sample, is acceptable (Cronbach’s α McDonald’s ω vary between 0.57 and 0.79). The study indicates that the five-factor version of the CSI-BV constitutes a valid tool for the assessment of communication styles. However, subsequent research on the psychometric properties of the CSI-BV is needed for other categories of population.