About the Measure
| Domains | Emotional Intelligence (mixed and trait) |
| Key stages | Key Stage 3, Key Stage 4, Key Stage 5 |
| Subscales | Difficulty describing feelings; Difficulty identifying feelings; Externally-oriented thinking |
| Description | One of the most commonly used measures of alexithymia. Alexithymia refers to people who have trouble identifying and describing emotions and who tend to minimise emotional experience and focus attention externally. The TAS-20 has 3 subscales: difficulty describing feelings, difficulty identifying feelings, and externally-oriented thinking. |
| Example | I am often confused about what emotion I am feeling |
| Link | http://www.gtaylorpsychiatry.org/tas.htm |
| Psychometry | |
| Implementation |
Implementation details
| No. of items | 20 |
| Format | Likert |
| Respondent | Self |
| Scoring | Standardised |
| Time | 0 |
| Age | 12-18 |
| Cost single purchase | £35 |
| Cost per child | - |
Psychometric details
| UK norms | No |
| Cronbach's α | .49-.87 |
| Test retest | Mean difference of -.33 for a 5-week period, indicating a Spearman's rho= .76 |
| Inter-rater reliability | Not reported |
| EFA | Not reported |
| CFA | Multigroup (age) 3-factor model SB-Chi-square(167)= [180.65 318.58] CFI= [.85 .94] RMSEA= [.023 .056] SRMR= [.07 .08] |
| Criterion validity | Not reported |
| Construct validity | Not reported |
| Concurrent validity | Not reported |
| Predictive validity | Not reported |
| Responsiveness | Not reported |
| Floor/Ceiling | Not reported |
| References | Säkkinen, P., Kaltiala-Heino, R., Ranta, K., Haataja, R., & Joukamaa, M. (2007). Psychometric properties of the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale and prevalence of alexithymia in a Finnish adolescent population. Psychosomatics, 48(2), 154-161. doi:10.1176/appi.psy.48.2.154 Zimmermann, G., Quartier, V., Bernard, M., Salamin, V., & Maggiori, C. (2007). [The 20-item Toronto alexithymia scale: structural validity, internal consistency and prevalence of alexithymia in a Swiss adolescent sample]. LEncephale, 33(6), 941-946. doi:10.1016/j.encep.2006.12.006 Parker, J. D., Eastabrook, J. M., Keefer, K. V., & Wood, L. M. (2010). Can alexithymia be assessed in adolescents? Psychometric properties of the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale in younger, middle, and older adolescents. Psychological Assessment, 22(4), 798-808. doi:10.1037/a0020256 Craparo, G., Faraci, P., & Gori, A. (2015). Psychometric properties of the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale in a group of Italian younger adolescents. Psychiatry Investigation, 12(4), 500-507. doi:10.4306/pi.2015.12.4.500 |