EDUR 9131
Advanced Educational Research
Activity 1 Latent Variable Assignment
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 (Readings, Presentations, and Videos for Questionnaire Development).
After you draft a set of items, it may be helpful to ask a classmate to critically review those items. Seek suggestions for improvement and revision, and then make revisions as needed before submitting draft items for instructor review.
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 Activity 1 Part 1 Description and Instructions for details. See Getting Started for an example of how to create scale items.
Assignments
2. Latent Variable Sample Scales
To help with scale development, below are linked studies that provide an example scale for your assigned construct. 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
(2) Work Stress
(3) Workplace/Job Commitment
(4) Workplace Loneliness
(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 no direct assessment of satisfaction - either in the item word or the scale responses - is indicated.
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.
(6) Work-life Conflict
(7) Financial Wellbeing
(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.
(9) Work/Job Burnout
(10) Life Satisfaction
Not used this semester.
(11) Work Engagement
(12) Life Stress
(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.
(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.
(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.