Yes! The options are pretty vague because they depend respondents having a standard idea of what those abstract ranked answers mean. I need concrete definitions. Otherwise, the individual item’s scale is partially dependent on what I think those words mean in relation to the statistical outcome of respondents that were used to establish the psychometrics of the test. I have confidence that the methods used by researchers that develop these scales are sound and based on statistical analyses paired with valid and tried measures, but I still get hung up on responding to the items.

Funnily (is this even a word?), I completed an executive functioning assessment for my autism therapist about a month ago. After I completed it, I sent her an email that took me ~30 mins to write and proof because I had concerns with the wording of the questions and was worried that the exam might not properly reflect my experiences. There’s one I remember was asking something about, “I get upset quickly or easily over little things.” The available options for the responses were something like the one in the BAP questionnaire, but there were only 3 options. The concern over this item was with the wording of the question. I argued that if I’m easily upset over things, then they aren’t insignificant to me. I could try to guess based on what I’ve seen in other people or what they have told me, but that would based on what they think is insignificant. I rate how significant something is to me by how much it affects me. The item is really assessing circular logic. If I answer “never”, then my logic is sound. If I answer “often”, then I’m not making sense because clearly the things that upset me easily are significant to me.