SAGE Journal Articles
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Scientific knowledge should reflect valid, consistent measurement. It is argued that research on scale development needs to be more systematic and prevalent. The intent of this article is to address scale development by creating and validating a construct that measures the underlying reasons why undergraduate students seek a degree in journalism, the Journalism Degree Motivations (JDM) scale. Through a multimethod approach and seven-step process, a set of motivations that reflect existing theory and measures was developed. The JDM scale is composed of eight factors: social responsibility, reporting, social prestige, sports media, photography, writing, varied career, and numbers and science anxiety.
Questions to Consider
1. Why do the authors posit that research on scale development needs to be more systematic and prevalent?
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Difficulty Level: Easy–Medium
2. Briefly summarize how the authors, through a multimethod approach and seven-step process, developed a set of motivations that reflect existing theory and measures.
Cognitive Domain: Analysis
Difficulty Level: Medium–Hard
3. While it may appear obvious at this stage of your education, provide a rationale as to why scientific knowledge should reflect valid, consistent measurement. What do the authors posit that might help accomplish this?
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension, Knowledge
Difficulty Level: Medium–Hard
A number of survey instruments measuring organizational culture can be found in the literature. Many of these have been reported to suffer from construct- and methodology-related weaknesses. Specifically, these have been found to either have insufficient theoretical basis or result in a narrow depiction of the multidimensional construct of organizational culture. In this article, the authors report the construction of a scale for measuring organizational culture that starts with a sound theoretical model to identify dimensions that comprehensively cover the content domain of organizational culture. Exploratory factor analysis has been used to extract seven factors. When interpreted, these factors align well with the starting theoretical model. The scale thus developed has been found to be internally consistent and demonstrates construct validity.
Questions to Consider
1. List and discuss some of the construct- and methodology-related weaknesses that the author’s discuss.
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Difficulty Level: Medium–Hard
2. The authors posit that the scale they developed has been found to be internally consistent and demonstrates construct validity. How do you determine construct validity and how do you see this demonstrated within this article?
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension, Analysis
Difficulty Level: Medium–Hard
3. How does a theoretical basis for scales of measurement factor in to validity?
Cognitive Domain: Knowledge
Difficulty Level: Medium
The objective of this article was to describe and validate psychometric properties of a Likert-type scale to assess the perception of equity in health care, characterize equity in health care of users in the district of Vila Real, and analyze the factors that determine equity in health care in the district of Vila Real. The study was developed in a district of the northern interior of Portugal, with 6,113 participants. We resorted to Cronbach’s alpha and also Pearson’s correlation to validate the scale. The Cronbach’s alpha of the scale is adequate, showing a good internal consistency, and the most appointed factors as being influential on equity are age, geographical distance, and socioeconomic resources. The proposed scale was found to perform well, measuring these participants’ perception on the equity to access in health care, which can contribute to identify the key determinants appointed by the population as generators of inequity, leading to the implementation of measures.
Questions to Consider
1. How does this study use the Cronbach’s alpha and also Pearson’s correlation to validate the scale in this article?
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Difficulty Level: Medium
2. How does the article support Cronbach’s alpha of the scale as being adequate and showing a good internal consistency?
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension, Analysis
Difficulty Level: Medium
3. How does the article explain that a scale is reliable and has good internal consistency?
Cognitive Domain: Analysis
Difficulty Level: Medium
The strengths self-efficacy scale (SSES) was developed to allow career counselors, educators, and researchers to assess individuals’ perceived abilities to build their personal strengths and apply them in their daily life. An exploratory factor analysis was conducted with 275 adults and resulted in one factor: general strengths self-efficacy. The internal consistency was 0.96 and SSES was weakly related to social desirability. A confirmatory factor analysis was performed using another sample of 302 adults, and the results verified the one-factor structure. The results suggested that the 11-item SSES demonstrated strong internal consistency (α = 0.95) and that SSES scores were moderately related to self-esteem and life satisfaction and weakly related to social desirability. Finally, a test–retest reliability analysis on a sample of 36 adults indicated that SSES scores were stable over a 3-week period. Implications for career counseling and mental health practices as well as research applications of this new measure were discussed.
Questions to Consider
1. Discuss the types of reliability evidence presented by the authors. What conclusions can you draw about the consistency of responses?
Learning Objective: Reliability of measures
Cognitive Domain: Evaluation
Difficulty Level: Medium
2. What variables did Tsai et al. use to evaluate the convergent validity of the SSES scale? (a) Social desirability and general self-efficacy. (b) Self-esteem and life satisfaction. (c) Clifton StrengthFinder and Values in Action. (d) Academic performance and persistency.
Learning Objective: Construct validity
Cognitive Domain: Analysis
Difficulty Level: Easy
3. How did Tsai et al. assess the content validity of the SSSES: (a) by showing high internal consistency reliability, (b) by showing high test–retest reliability, (c) by showing a pattern of convergent and divergent validity, (d) by having experts evaluate the items?
Learning Objective: Content validity
Cognitive Domain: Evaluation
Difficulty Level: Medium
In this study, the authors assessed the psychometric properties of the Professor–Student Rapport Scale, the first scale to measure professor–student rapport. The scale was found to have adequate test–retest and internal-consistency reliability. In addition to these findings, measures used to determine convergent validity included the Working Alliance Inventory, a social support scale, and a measure of verbal aggressiveness. The rapport scale was found to significantly correlate in the expected direction with these measures. Specifically, the rapport scale correlated positively with the Working Alliance Inventory and the social support scale and correlated negatively with the verbal aggressiveness scale. Applications are discussed in terms of using the scale to identify areas of improvement in teaching practices and the potential usefulness of the scale for predicting student outcomes.
Questions to Consider
1. Read over the items of the Professor–Student Rapport Scale. From a student’s perspective, describe the construct or constructs that you think are represented by this scale. Does your construct match the construct by Wilson and Ryan? Would you call the construct something different?
Learning Objective: Construct/Face validity
Cognitive Domain: Application
Difficulty Level: Hard
2. What was the Cronbach’s internal consistency reliability estimate for the final “Perceptions for teacher” scale? (a) 0.50, (b) 0.65, (c) 0.84, (d) 0.92.
Learning Objective: Cronbach’s alpha
Cognitive Domain: Knowledge
Difficulty Level: Easy
3. What was the true predictive validity variable used in this study? (a) Ratings of teacher effectiveness. (b) Perceived amount learned. (c) Final grade in the course. (d) Attitudes toward the course.
Learning Objective: Predictive validity
Cognitive Domain: Evaluation
Difficulty Level: Medium