I like to develop new measures (Strongly Agree - Strongly Disagree)
The week ahead (week 8)
Hands up for “Yes”
(in which case I’ll re-record the lecture)
Will involve participation
We can run this in-class exercise and if you want, I’ll apply for ethics to do the thing properly over the coming weeks. Could be publishable.
A psychological measure of
X
Articulate the construct and the context
Assemble items and decide on response format
Data collection
Assess Psychometric properties
Your call!
Psychological ‘constructs’ are tricky to pin down
May differ from ‘naive’ understanding
Consider ‘Intelligence’ and ‘Empathy’
What about Personality?
Gosling et al. (2003)
https://gosling.psy.utexas.edu/scales-weve-developed/ten-item-personality-measure-tipi/
Span et al. (2002)
An incredibly valuable resource and a lovely way in to new topic areas!
Articulate the construct and the context
Assemble items and decide on response format
Data collection
Assess Psychometric properties
What are we measuring and how do we conceptualise it?
In what context is the construct displayed?
Is it ‘unitary’ or ‘multidimensional’?
Either write items or ‘find’ items.
e.g. The lexical approach to personality
or the Delphi Technique (Expert Opinions e.g. Clinicians)
Previous scales or items (other research
Talk to the target population/observation
There are options
Likert Scales (To what extent do you agree with SD - NAND -SA)
Rating Scale (On a scale of 1-7 how x are you?)
Forced Choice (a - Modesty doesn’t become me. b - I am essentially a modest person)
Semantic differential (Healthy —— Unhealthy)
Options (True False, 7 point)
Labels/anchors (What is the midpoint?)
Mid-points (4 item or 5, Don’t know, N/A, No opinion)
Consistency of response across items
An acronym that stands for “Brief,” “Relevant,” “Unambiguous,” “Specific,” and “Objective,”
Peterson (2000)
Adapted from Barker et al., 2016: pp. 111-112; DeVellis, 2017: p. 101.
The Social Readjustment Rating Scale (Holmes and Rahe, 1967) is a self-report questionnaire on which people identify stressful events that they have experienced in the past year and assigns points for each one depending on its severity. For example, a man who has been divorced (73 points), changed jobs (36 points), and had a change in sleeping habits (16 points) in the past year would have a total score of 125.
The Daily Hassles and Uplifts Scale (Delongis et al., 1982)is similar but focuses on everyday stressors like misplacing things and being concerned about one’s weight.
The Perceived Stress Scale (Cohen et al., 1994)is another self-report measure that focuses on people’s feelings of stress (e.g., “How often have you felt nervous and stressed?”).
Researchers have also operationally defined stress in terms of several physiological variables including blood pressure and levels of the stress hormone cortisol.
(Cohen et al., 1994; DeLongis et al., 1982; Holmes & Rahe, 1967)
If you would like to, how about we develop a scale of our own.
Everyone who wants to have a go, come to the front.
the relationship between some traits that should have weak or no relationship
Does the scale appear to be measuring the variable? to researcher AND participant! e.g. Psychopathy at work scales. Cannot be TOO ‘criminal’ or ‘deviant’
Do the items on the scale represent the various (and full) aspects of the variable being measured?
Does the scale actually measure the intended variable?
Does the scale relate to a relevant outcome or behavior that was measured at the same time?
Does the scale relate to a relevant outcome or behavior that occurs in the future, after the scale is completed?
the relationship between traits that are similar to (but not identical to) the trait being measured
the relationship between some measure and some real-world outcome
the relationship between some traits that should have weak or no relationship
Inter-rater reliability agreement demonstrates consistent results between different examiners.
reliability between tests conducted over short periods of time.
the correlation between to halves of the same proposed measure. Doing this for all the possible halves and averaging the result it Cohen’s Alpha!
PS52007D Research Methods VLE