scale development Flashcards
concrete constructs
connected to unambiguous observable events
usually observed with physical instruments
e.g. weight/height/age
abstract constructs
observed through self-report measures (e.g. scale items)
observe behaviour or psychological measures e.g. brain imaging
e.g. memory/attention/anxiety/identity/happiness
what are constructs called?
latent variables
something we are not directly observing
what are measures called that intend to capture the latent variables?
observed variables
what are 5 ways psychological constructs are measured?
- cognitive tasks
- behavioural observation
- physiological measures
- brain scans
- self-report scales
what type is the focus?
self-report scales
disadvantage of self-report scales (3)
- dependent on pp’s memory e.g. responses can be affected by recency effects (recent event may be more important)
- influenced by self-representation (pp motivated to present themselves in a positive light to others and themselves)
- influenced by pp’s response styles (some pp agree with scale items regardless of their content; have an acquiescent response style)
3 advantages of self-report scales
- information richness (no one has access to as much info about pp than the pp themselves)
- motivation to report (pp usually pleased to talk about themselves and may put in more time and effort)
- ease of administration (cheap, quick, easy to set up, code and analyse)
phases of investigating new construct using scales (Flake et al 2017)
- substantive phase (week 1)
a. construct conceptualisation/literature review
b. generating items - structural phase (week 5)
a. item analysis
b. determining dimensionality
c. reliability - external phase (week 6)
a. convergent/discriminant validity
substantive phase of scale development
make decision about target construction and what the scale will look like
steps:
a. construct conceptualisation/literature review (define boundaries of construct)
b. generating ideas (making measurement decision/review items - quality control)
type of psychological experience: vegetarianism
vegetarian identity: identify as vegetarian
vegetarian behaviour: I generally avoid eating meat
being aware of what experience you are trying to capture when constructing scale items
construct specificity
constructs should be measured at specific level of detail or focus
specificity matching principle states variables at same level of specificity are more strongly related e.g. constructs about life as a whole correlate strongly with other broad constructs compared to narrower ones like workplace related ones
e.g. person may feel like life is meaningful but not find meaning in their career
direct vs indirect items
direct
- pp directly invited to reflect on the constructs of interest and name of construct is used in the item wording
- e.g. “I have high self-esteem”
indirect
- pp indirectly invited to reflect on experiences that are about the construct of interest without naming it
e.g. narcissism scale might ask pp about leadership (“people see me as a natural leader”) but the scale is not about these things
what is an aim for constructs?
good discrimination
- people with same scores should be equivalent in the measured construct
- people with different scores should be different to each other in the measured construct
- the degree of difference between people should be proportional to the difference in scores
examples to understand discrimination
if line A has 4cm and line B has 2cm you would expect line A to be twice as long as B
if pp A scores 4 and pp B scores 2, you would expect A to be twice as afraid of spiders as pp B
