Survey and Scale Design

This graduate course provides an applied introduction to the design, evaluation, and validation of surveys, scales, and other affective instruments. To this end, we will cover item development, scaling procedures, construct validity, content validity, unidimensionality, “factorial” validity, and issues surrounding reliability. Students will learn how to define and map constructs, write and revise items, select appropriate response scales, address total survey error and ethical issues, gather content and response-process validity evidence through expert review, cognitive interviewing, and pretesting, and evaluate instrument functioning using item analyses, exploratory factor analysis, and reliability analyses in R/RStudio. Throughout the semester, students will critically examine contemporary research on measurement, validity, reliability, dimensionality, scaling, sampling, diverse populations, and open science practices, while developing their own survey or short scale and preparing a manuscript-style report that presents a validity argument and outlines next steps for further instrument validation.