Activity 1 - Parts 1 and 2: Scale Development and Scale Validation

Fall 2024

1. Latent Variable Assignments

There are 10 latent variables (constructs) described in the Activity 1 instructions. Please let me know if you have any questions. In preparation for writing items, please review the presentation on Questionnaire/Scale Development.

Questionnaire/Scale Development (Readings for Questionnaire Development)

Work individually to develop items for your assigned latent variable; see Activity 1 Description and Instructions.

For response options, use a 5-step scale so there is consistency across items when we later develop the electronic questionnaire and analyze data collected from that questionnaire.

See the Getting Started document for an example of how to create scale items for this activity.

Latent Variables and Groups

2. Latent Variable Sample Scales

To help with scale development, below are linked studies that provide an example scale for your assigned latent variable. Item wording is presented usually in the Instrumentation or Measures section, or in a table, or sometimes in an appendix. These examples should help you understand better the latent variable you have been assigned.

The examples I provide below are usually limited, so use Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.com) to conduct your own searches to find other examples to learn of the breath of options and wording available for measuring the construct you have been assigned.

(1) Work/Job Autonomy

Rehman, U., & Shahnawaz, M. G. (2018). Machiavellianism, Job Autonomy, and Counterproductive Work Behaviour among Indian Managers. Revista de Psicología del Trabajo y de las Organizaciones, 34(2).

(2) Work Stress

Abbas, S. G., & Roger, A. (2013). The impact of work overload and coping mechanisms on different dimensions of stress among university teachers. @ GRH, (3), 93-118.

(3) Workplace/Job Commitment

Lim, V. K., & Teo, T. S. (2009). Mind your E-manners: Impact of cyber incivility on employees’ work attitude and behavior. Information & Management, 46(8), 419-425.

(4) Workplace Loneliness

Wright, S. L., Burt, C. D., & Strongman, K. T. (2006). Loneliness in the workplace: Construct definition and scale development.

(5) Job Satisfaction

A common problem with job satisfaction scales is the lack of clear anchoring of scale responses to satisfaction. Many examples of job satisfaction scales are simply long lists (50+) to which respondents indicate whether they agree is present or available at their place of employment. These are poor measures of satisfaction because often they are not direct assessments of satisfaction either in the item wording or the scale responses.

To measure satisfaction, it is best to have scale responses that allow respondents to indicate their level of satisfaction (e.g., very dissatisfied to very satisfied), or use some other wording that focuses on satisfaction.

Amundsen, S., & Martinsen, Ø. L. (2015). Linking empowering leadership to job satisfaction, work effort, and creativity: The role of self-leadership and psychological empowerment. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 22(3), 304-323.

(6) Work-life Conflict

Netemeyer, R. G., Boles, J. S., & McMurrian, R. (1996). Development and validation of work–family conflict and family–work conflict scales. Journal of applied psychology, 81(4), 400.

(7) Financial Wellbeing

Bureau, C. F. P. (2015). Measuring financial well-being: A guide to using the CFPB Financial Well-Being Scale. Retrieved from files. consumerfinance. gov/f/201512_cfpb_financial-well-being-user-guide-scale. pdf.

(8) Workplace Incivility

Focus should be on whether respondent has experienced incivility - the victim - in the workplace. Perpetration is not the focus. The scale developed should include workplace uncivil acts in both electronic (e.g., email, text, internet chats/meetings, etc.) and live (e.g. face-to-face, in meetings, office or hallway interactions, being ignored, etc.) forms.

Lim, V. K., & Teo, T. S. (2009). Mind your E-manners: Impact of cyber incivility on employees’ work attitude and behavior. Information & Management, 46(8), 419-425.

(9) Work/Job Burnout

Borritz, M., Rugulies, R., Bjorner, J. B., Villadsen, E., Mikkelsen, O. A., & Kristensen, T. S. (2006). Burnout among employees in human service work: design and baseline findings of the PUMA study. Scandinavian journal of public health, 34(1), 49-58.

(10) Life Satisfaction

Diener, E. D., Emmons, R. A., Larsen, R. J., & Griffin, S. (1985). The satisfaction with life scale. Journal of personality assessment, 49(1), 71-75.

 

 

Not used this semester.

(11) Work Engagement

Garg, K., Dar, I. A., & Mishra, M. (2018). Job satisfaction and work engagement: A study using private sector bank managers. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 20(1), 58-71.

(12) Life Stress

Ezzati, A., Jiang, J., Katz, M. J., Sliwinski, M. J., Zimmerman, M. E., & Lipton, R. B. (2014). Validation of the Perceived Stress Scale in a community sample of older adults. International journal of geriatric psychiatry, 29(6), 645-652.

(13) Family & Social Support (non-work related support)

For this latent variable, the focus is on support from family and friends/non-friends. Items should not focus on social support at work.

Sherbourne, C. D., & Stewart, A. L. (1991). The MOS social support survey. Social science & medicine, 32(6), 705-714.

(14) Religiosity

The scale should be religion generic because focusing on one religion, e.g., Christianity or Islam, may exclude some respondents and therefore not provide a measure of the level of religious conviction each respondent holds.

Liu, Eric Yang, and Harold G. Koenig. "Measuring Intrinsic Religiosity: scales for use in mental health studies in China–a research report." Mental Health, Religion & Culture 16.2 (2013): 215-224.

(15) Physical & Mental Subjective Wellbeing

It is difficult to measure both physical and mental wellbeing in a brief scale, so the focus here should be on one aspects of wellbeing, either physical health and mental health. Components outside these two - money, job, etc. - should not be included.

Kinderman, P., Schwannauer, M., Pontin, E., & Tai, S. (2011). The development and validation of a general measure of well-being: the BBC well-being scale. Quality of Life Research, 20(7), 1035-1042.

Clarke, A., Friede, T., Putz, R., Ashdown, J., Martin, S., Blake, A., ... & Stewart-Brown, S. (2011). Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS): validated for teenage school students in England and Scotland. A mixed methods assessment. BMC public health, 11(1), 1-9.