Development and Validation of the Short Form of the Chinese Big Five Questionnaire for Children (CBFQ-C-S)

The Big Five personality model is widely recognized for capturing personality traits across developmental stages and has increasingly been extended to child populations through validated instruments, with the Big Five Questionnaire for Children (BFQ-C) being among the most widely used. However, its relatively long format constrains its practical utility. This research aimed to develop and validate a short form of the Chinese Big Five Questionnaire for Children (CBFQ-C-S), using both theoretical and empirical item selection procedures. A 25-item short form was developed in the first of three sequential studies involving Chinese elementary students, ensuring balanced representation across the five personality dimensions. The subsequent studies provided validation evidence for the newly developed short form, demonstrating measurement invariance across independent samples and key demographic groups (e.g., age and gender), adequate reliability, and solid convergent and predictive validity relative to the full version. The CBFQ-C-S offers researchers and practitioners an efficient, culturally valid instrument for personality assessment among Chinese children, facilitating its use in large-scale surveys, longitudinal studies, and educational settings. Moreover, theoretical and empirical criteria for developing the short form were demonstrated, which could provide methodological insights for future psychometric research.