By using IRT, we [47] investigated (1) the measurement
accuracy of the Japanese and the original Dutch
version of the 9-item short Utrecht Work Engagement
Scale and (2) the comparability of the scale between
Japan (N = 2,339) and the Netherlands (N = 13,406).
Figure 2 and 3 show the results of TIF and SEM among
Japanese and Dutch samples, respectively (please note
that SEM equals the root square of 1/TIF), whereby the
x-axis indicates the latent trait of the scale and the
y-axis indicates measurement precision conditional on
latent trait for the whole scale.
The results of TIF and SEM showed that measurement
accuracy of both versions was not similar. The amount of
information in the Japanese version decreased sharply
at the level of less than -2 (Figure 2), meaning that the
Japanese version had difficulty in differentiating respondents
with extremely low work engagement. On the
other hand, the amount of information in the original
Dutch version decreased gradually at the level of more
than 1 (Figure 3), meaning that the original version had
difficulty in differentiating respondents with high work
engagement