Patterns of hand preference in Italian adolescent high-school students.
The Annett Hand Preference Questionnaire (AHPQ) is amongst the most widely used self-report measures of handedness. The psychometric properties of the AHPQ have been rarely evaluated outside the Anglo-Saxon culture where the majority of the studies on the AHPQ were done. In this study, 1,023 students (males=49.5%) from four large high schools operating in the district of Cagliari (Italy) were invited to fill in the Italian version of the AHPQ. The AHPQ was proved to measure a unidimensional latent trait, and the questionnaire was good at assessing deviation from right-handedness with high discrimination between subjects. Some items were more informative than others, and in particular the non-equivalence between the primary and the non-primary actions was confirmed by both the confirmatory factor and the item response theory analysis. The use of the rule of thumb that classifies subjects on the basis of the primary actions was supported for the distinction between consistent right- and left-handed. However, the mixed-handed group identified on the basis of the rule of thumb was not entirely consistent with the mixed-handed class predicted by the latent class analysis. Males were about twice as likely as females to be in the mixed-handed class.
a Department of Education, Psychology, Philosophy, Section on Clinical Psychology , University of Cagliari , Cagliari , Italy.
Alessandra
A
Lai
Marianna
M
Serra
Donatella Rita
DR
Petretto
Carmelo
C
Masala
Antonio
A
Preti
D000293:Adolescent; D000367:Age Factors; D003469:Culture; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006225:Hand; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D013334:Students; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult
Annett Hand Preference Questionnaire; Confirmatory factor analysis; Handedness; Italy; Item response theory; Latent class analysis; Sex differences