Scale Creation 3
Part I: Construct Development and Scale Creation 1. Create an operational definition of your construct using at least three peer-reviewed journal articles as references. 2. Construct and Measure function in the workplace/Working Memory (example task: attendance or pay, or position) 3. Use the five items below to sample the domain. Work Performance, Skills/Experience, Male/Female, Age, and Educational Background 4. Use as your method of scaling; Working Memory/ Construct and Measure function in the workplace (example task: attendance or pay, or position) 5. Justify why you selected the scaling method you did. 6. Format the items into an instrument with which you would query respondents. 7. Justify whether this is an interview or self-report instrument. USE APA format and PEER PERVIEW articles and REFERENCES NOTES ATTACHED FOR ASSIGNMENT. 1. Choose a construct you would like to measure. We will construct and measure the functionality of working memory (WM) at the workplace, with the example of the performance of a computing payroll task. 2. Create an operational definition of your construct using at least three peer reviewed journal articles as sources as references. Given an individual’s Working memory (WM) capacities vary, not only among the individual, it also varies among different jobs, situation, or environment settings (Salthouse & Babcock, 1991). For the functionality of working memory, this measurements should relate to (WM) at the workplace (Field of transfer). For performance such as payroll tasks, normally thease tasks will require “transfer of data” from one medium (list) to another (computer) (Carruthers & Espeland, 1991). WM is typically describes as the amount of information recalled 30 seconds after the learning stage (Baddeley, 2003). Therefore, the operational definition in this area should center on the relative quantity of pairs of monetary figures; thus, employees pay hours and the total hours worked. Construct Development, Scale Creation, and Process Analysis Working memory is a relatively short-term process that is responsible for a great deal of things. Working memory is how individuals learn new skills such as math or even reading. Working memory assists in storing new information received into the person’s brain, it can help in using already stored information, it is responsible for reasoning, comprehension, and even memory updating. This paper will provide an analysis and justification on this construct being measured in the workplace through providing an operational definition of the construct. The paper will describe how to norm the instrument, the reliability measures that would be used, how many people it would be given too, the characteristics of the respondents desired, and who the instrument would be generalized to. The paper would cover how to establish validity, describe methods used for item selection, discuss the use of cut-off scores, and explain how item selection would be evaluated. Operational Definition Operational meaning of the construct is that individual’s working memory has breaking points which contrast among people and between different settings or tasks and measurements of these should be related the person’s field of trade or transfer, for this case it would be the execution office tasks dealing with data (Salthouse & Babcock, 1991). Thus, the operational definition should place focus on relative measures of sets in the data such as bookkeeping though the use of name and account sum, remembered out of 15 sets. Five things used to test the space will include gender, age, work experience, education, and a person’s lateral orientation, whether the individual is left or right-handed (Carruthers & Espeland, 1991). Development of Instrument Good working memory will be defined as being able to actively keeping around seven times, plus or minus two, in memory for a couple of seconds (Smith, 1991). In this case the item will be worthless unless an individual can keep the pair set, being able to recall the name and account sum together. The scale used will have six ranks with the seven pair sets being the lowest score possible for the upper median which will be equal to six. The plus or minus of two set items will represent the standard deviation and the scale will be as follows. Stage one will be zero to one item representing the 3rd standard deviation and represent exceptional impairment of working memory. Stage two is recall of three items representing second standard deviation and will equal abnormal impairment. Stage three is five items representing the first negative standard deviation and mild impairment. The fourth stage is seven items, first positive standard deviation, and good performance. The fifth stage is nine items, second standard deviation, and excellent performance. The final stage is more than nine items, third standard deviation, and exceptionally good performance. With this break down of scoring and measuring cut-off scores will not be needed as the information is broken down to view an individual’s recall of the item sets given to them. The instrument developed is an objective measurement with the participants receiving a list of item sets or transactions that have a name and account sum. The account sums are either positive or negative listed as cash or payables with the amount. The names of the accounts will be listed with only one word, the person’s last name, and the sum together not exceeding 99 as the sum. The participants will look over the list for two minutes, receive a pause of 30 seconds, and then will set to recall as many of the item sets as the participant can in a four minute timeframe. The stages lists above will be the measurement used in order to generalize the instrument to workplace settings. EXAMPLE NUMBER 2 Construct Development, Scale Creation, and Process Analysis Paper Part I: Construct Development and Scale Creation Construct to Measure The construct that team C would like to measure for this paper is test anxiety. Operational Definition of Construct Kurt, Balci, and Kose, (2014) defined test anxiety as “A special kind of anxiety-worry mixed with fear which arises especially in situations where the individual is being evaluated in an academic context, (p. 1235)”. This kind of anxiety as stated by Kurt et al (2014) “may prevent effective use and communication of the information learned for the exam, resulting in failure, (p. 1235)”. However, Zhang and Henderson (2014) using Spielberger and Sarason’s definition states “Spielberger and Sarason define test anxiety as a situation-specific trait that refers to anxiety states experienced during examinations, (p. 2)”. Furthermore Kandemir (2013) in his article A Model explaining test anxiety: perfectionist personality traits and performance achievement goals, defines test anxiety as “The feeling which is experienced during a formal exam or evaluation, causes stress and has cognitive, affective and behavioral features that prevent the individual from presenting his/her real performance, (p. 272)”. According to Cohen, Yaakobi, Porat, & Chayoh (1989), test anxiety is an emotional state that is described as a psychological and physiological phenomenon. It also has an impact on self-esteem. Hence one can agree that test anxiety is a performance anxiety causing distress to individuals taking a test. Individuals may feel pressured to perform up to a certain standard and can result in failure or poor performance. Items Used to Sample the Domain. Five items used to sample the domain will include: Negative self-focused thoughts Worry – cognitive concern about test performance Emotionality – physiological reactions Tension Test- irrelevant Thinking Method of Scaling Appropriate for Domain The method of paired comparison will be appropriate for the domains in this construct. The participants will be given stimuli in pairs to compare based on the rules of the given in regards to the construct. Justification for the Scaling Method This would not be an interview but a self-report instrument instead, using the Spielberger test anxiety inventory (TAI) which is a self-report psychometric scale. As stated by Spielberger (1980) this would be used to “measure individual differences in test anxiety as a situation-specific trait. Based on a Likert Scale, the respondents are asked to report how frequently they experience specific symptoms of anxiety before, during and after examinations, (p. 1)”. “In addition to measuring individual differences in anxiety proneness in test situations, the TAI subscales assess worry and emotionality as major components of test anxiety, (Spielberger, 1980; p. 1)”. Justification of Instrument Thus this study uses the self-report method to measure the negative self-focused thoughts, worry and cognitive concern about test performance, emotionality physiological reactions, gender and age. The instrument used is the scale of objective measurement. Items Formatted into Instrument to Query Respondents Negative self-focused thoughts Physiological Self proclaimed prophecy Worry – cognitive concern about test performance Feelings of dread Feelings of apprehension Emotionality – physiological reactions Schachter-Singer Theory The fight or flight response Tension Somatic symptoms Over-arousal Test- Irrelevant Thinking Fear of failure Catastrophizing Interview or Self-Report Justification This study uses the self-report method to measure the negative self-focused thoughts, worry and cognitive concern about test performance, emotionality physiological reactions, gender and age. The instrument used is the scale of objective measurement References Baddeley, A. (2003). Working memory: Looking back and looking forward. Nature Review Neuroscience. 4(10), pp. 829-839. Retrieved from http://www.csuchico.edu/~nschwartz/baddeley.recent.pdf Carruthers, B. G. & Espeland, W. N. (1991). Accounting for rationality: Double-entry bookkeeping and the rhetoric of economic rationality. The American Journal of Sociology, 97(1), pp. 31-69. Retrieved from http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002- 9602%28199107%2997%3A1%3C31%3AAFRDBA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-%23 Lund Research Ltd. (2012). Construct Validity. Retrieved from: http://dissertation.laerd.com/construct-validity.php McNamara, D. S., & Scott, J. L. (2001). Working memory capacity and strategy use. Memory & Cognition, 29, 10–17. “Psychology World.” (2015). Left-handedness: Does it mean anything? Retrieved from http://www.psychologistworld.com/influence_personality/handedness.php Salthouse, T. A. & Babcock, R. L. (1991). Decomposing adult age differences in working memory. Developmental Psychology, 27(5), pp. 763-776. Retrieved from http://66.102.1.104/scholar?q=cache:KHywaRjR7H0J:scholar.google.com/+working+me mory+construct&hl=en Smith, E. E. (1991). Working memory. In Wilson, R. A. & Keil, F. C., the MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 888-889. Trochim, William M.K. (2006). Idea of Construct Validity. Retrieved from: http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/considea.php