A Review of the Steps for Developing an Affective Instrument

Overview

In chapter 1, we discussed the theoretical basis underlying selected affective characteristics. In chapter 2, the conceptual definitions were operationalized by developing belief statements or, in the case of the semantic differential, bipolar adjective pairs. Chapter 3 described the standard techniques for scaling affective characteristics. Techniques described included Thurstone’s equal-appearing interval, latent trait, Likert’s summated ratings, and Osgood’s semantic differential. It was pointed out that all of the techniques share the common goal of locating a person on a bipolar evaluative dimension with respect to a given target object. For each technique the scaling process resulted in a single affective score arrived at on the basis of responses to a set of belief statements. Similarities and differences among the scaling techniques were presented. Finally, chapter 3 discussed the practical and psychometric differences between ipsative and normative measures.

Chapters 4 and 5 discussed theory and techniques for examining the validity and reliability of the affective instrument. Emphasis was first placed upon examining the correspondence between the judgmental evidence collected in the content validity study and the empirical evidence gathered to examine construct validity. Finally, the importance of high alpha internalconsistency reliability was discussed.