Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI; Myers et al. 1998)
The MBTI measures four aspects of personality: Introversion/Extraversion, Intuitive/Sensate, Thinking/Feeling and Judging/Perceiving. Emphasis was placed on the two subscales most closely linked to intuition: Intuitive (α = 0•929) and Feeling (α = 0•910). Each subscale consists of 26 and 24 items, respectively, which require a forced-choice response. Intuitive items assess preference for the abstract over the concrete. For example, an Intuitive response would be to prefer ‘ideas’ over ‘facts.’ Feeling items assess preference for following the heart rather than the head. A Feeling response would be to prefer ‘touching’ over ‘convincing.’
Types of Intuition Scale (TIntS; Pretz JE, Brookings JB & Carlson LA, unpublished data)
Three types of intuition, Holistic, Inferential and Affective, are measured using 37 items which are responded to on a five-point Likert scale. Holistic intuition refers to the integration of diverse sources of information to make a judgement. Inferential intuition refers to a response that was once analytical but has become automatic through practice. Affective intuition refers to preference for intuition based on feelings. A sample Affective item is, ‘I tend to use my heart as a guide for my actions.’ The affective scale was the only subscale that demonstrated adequate reliability (α = 0•797) in this sample, so it was the only scale included in these analyses.
The Miller Intuitiveness Instrument (Miller 1995)
Miller’s instrument is a 43-item measure (α = 0•969) of a nurse’s self-perception of intuitiveness as rated on a six-point Likert scale. Five factors are reflected in the scale: Willing to Act (‘I trust my intuition when planning care for a patient’), Skilled Innovator (‘I am likely to develop innovative approaches to nursing care problems when traditional approaches are unsatisfactory’), Spiritual (‘I feel a connection between myself and some of my patients that is spiritual in nature’), Interest in the Abstract (‘I enjoy discussions of philosophical issues such as moral/ethical issues, theories, abstract ideas’), Risk Taking (‘Because of a ‘gut feeling’, I may take certain nursing actions…that are contrary to objective data’).