ebook THE GUILFORD PRESS Survey ScaleS Also Available Assessing Performance: Designing, Scoring, and Validating Performance Tasks Robert L. Johnson, James A. Penny, and Belita Gordon Survey ScaleS A Guide to Development, Analysis, and Reporting RobeRt L. Johnson GRAnt b. MoRGAn the GUILFoRD PRess new York London © 2016 The Guilford Press A Division of Guilford Publications, Inc. 370 Seventh Avenue, Suite 1200, New York, NY 10001 www.guilford.com All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. Printed in the United States of America This book is printed on acid-free paper. Last digit is print number: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the publisher. ISBN 978-1-4625-2696-3 (paperback) ISBN 978-1-4625-2697-0 (hardcover) To our families Mildred and Walter, my parents Judy, Jerri, and Jeannie, my sisters Richard, my partner —R. L. J. Olivia, my daughter Jessica, my wife Cheryl, my mom —G. B. M. Preface When you opened this book, you probably were looking for the answers to some questions, such as: • “When I am writing items, how do I ensure the items are targeting the focus of my research?” • “If I use a few items from another researcher’s scale, do I need to obtain copyright permission to use the items?” • “How do I decide which items are ‘good’ and which are ‘problem- atic’?” • “Should the scales on the items be 4-point, 5-point, or more?” • “Should each scale point have a label?” • “How do I investigate the reliability and validity associated with the survey scale?” We wrote Survey Scales: A Guide to Development, Analysis, and Report- ing to answer these questions (and some others). We also wrote it to pro- vide a resource for those in research and program evaluation who plan to develop scales for use in surveys by explaining such topics as: • Reviewing existing scales for use in a study, • Designing a framework to guide scale development, • Writing items, vii viii Preface • Developing item response scales, • Examining validity and reliability, • Conducting a factor analysis, • Analyzing data, and • Reporting scale results. In Survey Scales, we synthesize the literature from the survey and mea- surement fields. The book is grounded in our research and experience in conducting surveys, as well as feedback from our students in the survey design courses we’ve taught. Since the literature on scale development is not always consistent in its guidance on design, Survey Scales is written to help readers select the appropriate methodology or approach to use and understand why such methods or approaches are appropriate. Rather than focus on a single discipline, we draw examples from various professional fields, such as education, psychology, and public health. Survey Scales is applied in that it is a resource for those who plan to use survey scales in a research study or an evaluation. It will be of interest to practitioners who are planning a survey as well as to doctoral students who are developing surveys to use in data collection for their dissertations. We begin at the first step in scale development and end with analyzing data and reporting results, so it may be helpful for first-time readers to take the chapters in sequence. We purposely ordered the chapters in such a way that scale developers will have food for thought and guidance for each step of the development process. Researchers may find the coverage of frameworks for scale develop- ment (Chapter 3) particularly useful because this is an area that is not com- monly addressed in other texts. We have carefully presented the informa- tion so that readers can follow and begin creating their own frameworks for scale development. Having such a framework is an excellent way to identify the critical components of an instrument and ensure that desired elements are included in the scale. For those readers who may have an existing instrument in mind, we have also included a chapter on adopting or adapting existing scales (Chap- ter 2). In this chapter, we present criteria for determining whether a preex- isting scale is likely to provide data of an appropriate quality for a research study or program evaluation. Readers are introduced to the Mental Mea- surements Yearbook, a resource that provides critiques of measurement tools, such as attitude scales. Chapter 2 also provides guidance on the use of journal articles to find information about the technical quality of scales. In addition, we provide guidance on the extent to which a researcher can appropriately incorporate items or sections of a survey scale into his or her scale and on the need to obtain permission to use copyrighted scales.