Validity and reliability of NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) on university students

Introduction: The NEO Personality Inventory short form measures five personality traits (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness) with its 60 questions. The present study investigated the reliability and validity of the NEO Personality Inventory short form.Methods: This descriptive correlative study enrolled 630 students at the military corps college with hand sampling, and they completed the Personality Inventory, NEO-FFI and the Adult Eysenck Personality Inventory. Data were analyzed using Pearson correlation tests.Results: The results showed that the reliability (internal consistency) of the subscales of conscientiousness and neuroticism were 0.83 and 0.80, respectively, and that the subscales of agreeableness and extraversion were acceptable at 0.60 and 0.58, respectively. However, the subscale of openness to experience was not internally correlated (0.39). In addition, the results of the convergent validity showed that the correlation of neuroticism and extraversion of the NEO-FFI with neuroticism and extraversion of the Eysenck were 0.68 and 0.47, respectively.Conclusion: The four subscales of neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness of the five subscales of NEO-FFI were valid for students of military corps college, and thus, they can be used to assess the personality of students.