Topics for the Activity 1 Research Project follow for each group.
Each group is to develop a questionnaire for the topic assigned. As
noted in the Activity 1 Research Project
instructions, each group will conduct a literature review, develop methods for
collecting relevant data, construct an instrument and field test it, collect and
analyze data.
When developing the questionnaire, note that it should have items that are
original or somewhat original (you cannot simply use existing wording or
instruments). To help each group get started, I have provided citations below.
At this point you should read the articles listed and try to find others on the
variables I have provided. Use these citations, and others you find, as
guiding work to help develop your instrument. Each citation provided can be
obtained from http://www.galileo.usg.edu/
(check GSU library to get this semester's password).
Since the sample for these projects will consist only of students enrolled in this course, keep
in mind the diverse background of each student when developing items for your
questionnaire. More general items will be best; specific items, such as those
that reference a particular type of employment, for example high school
administrator, may not work for all students enrolled in this course.
Lastly, for each construct assigned include one overall or global assessment item. I
explain this in more detail
Activity 1
Instructions in the "Example Instrument for Research and Presentation Assignment"
section.
Group 1: Jami
Hall, Amy Zieziula, and Charles Ziglar
DV = Instructor/Course Evaluation -- questionnaire items should seek participants'
evaluation, or rating, on various instructional dimensions such as course
organization, instructor feedback, clarity of presentation, etc. (To help focus all participants,
instructions should make clear which course should be evaluated -- this course, EDUR 9131, is a possible target, or another course recently completed by
everyone in this class.)
To measure how students rate a course, consider this web page and the
references found therein:
http://teaching.berkeley.edu/bgd/ratingforms.html. There are many
sources to course evaluation questionnaires on-line and in print, so perform
an on-line search.
IV = Student Perceived Competence on Course Content -- degree to which
students judge themselves to be competent in a given area, such as with the
content of this course.
IV = Perceived Autonomy Support -- degree to which students perceive that the
instructor offers some choice, some decision making capacity, to students, or
degree to which instructor responds to students thoughts/concerns.
Group 2: April Hodges, Brigid Nesmith, and Janet Poole
DV = Job Satisfaction -- degree to which an employee is satisfied with
her/his job.
Any research on measuring job satisfaction, or
satisfaction in general, will provide insight into development of an
instrument to measure job satisfaction. One idea might be to have
respondents rate, individually, their satisfaction with various common
aspects of any occupation. Other measurement ideas are possible too. Below
are two articles focusing upon job satisfaction. Others can be found in
GALILEO.
James Fredericks Volkwein and Ying Zhou (2003) Testing a model of
administrative job satisfaction, Vol. 44, No. 2
Valle, M., & Witt, L.A. (2001). The moderating effect
of teamwork perceptions on the organizational politics-job satisfaction
relationship. Journal of Social Psychology, 141, 379-388.
IV = Occupational Stress --- level of stress one encounters from daily
job-related activities.
Some examples of research with job-related stress:
IV = Perceived Work-related Autonomy -- discretion an individual has
in organizing and scheduling work (to what extent does the individual have
choice in making decisions, etc.)
One example of job autonomy measurement can be found here (search GALILEO
for full text copy):
Lonergan, J.M., & Maher, K.J. (2000). The relationship
between job characteristics and workplace procrastination as moderated by locus
of control. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 15, 213-224.
IV = Workplace Climate -- degree to which employee judges
the workplace to be friendly, helpful, or, for example, hostile.
Search for "workplace climate" in the full-text search
of GALILEO. Let me know if you cannot find anything useful. One lead:
James Fredericks Volkwein and Ying Zhou (2003) Testing
a model of administrative job satisfaction, Vol. 44, No. 2
Group 4: Candace Bethea and Kierstin Johnson
DV = General Happiness with Life -- general, overall feelings or
thoughts regarding one's level of happiness with life as a whole. Some examples
of possible measures/studies:
Michael W. Fordyce; A review of research on the happiness measures: A
sixty second index of happiness and mental health; Social Indicators
Research; Volume 20, Number 4 / August, 1988; 355-381
Sonja Lyubomirsky and Heidi S. Lepper; A Measure of Subjective Happiness:
Preliminary Reliability and Construct Validation; Social Indicators
Research; Volume 46, Number 2 / February, 1999; 137-155
Todd B. Kashdan; The assessment of subjective well-being (issues raised
by the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire); Personality and Individual
Differences; Volume 36, Issue 5, April 2004, Pages 1225-1232
Diener, E., Emmons, R.A., Larson, R.J., & Griffin, S. (1985). The
satisfaction with life scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49, 71-75.
Pavot, W. & Diener, E. (1993). Review of the Satisfaction with Life
Scale. Psychological Assessment, 5, 164-172.
Pavot, W. G., Diener, E., Colvin, C. R., & Sandvik, E. (1991). Further
validation of the Satisfaction with Life Scale: Evidence for the
cross-method convergence of well-being measures. Journal of Personality
Assessment, 57, 149-161.
IV = Religiosity -- to what extent does an individual consider themselves
religious? Create an overall measure of one's religiosity--this measure should
not focus on any one religion in general, but should highlight
spiritual-religious expression. Some examples of
studies that include religiosity are:
"The Dimensions of Religiosity: A Conceptual Model with an Empirical
Test" Marie Cornwall, Stan L. Albrecht, Perry H. Cunningham and Brian L.
Pitcher; Review of Religious Research, Vol. 27, No. 3
(Mar., 1986), pp. 226-244
"Religiosity and its association with happiness, purpose in life, and
self-actualisation." Sarah French; Stephen Joseph; Mental Health,
Religion & Culture, Volume 2, Issue 2 November 1999 , pages 117 - 120
Jose Orathinkal and Alfons Vansteenwegen. Religiosity and Marital
Satisfaction; Contemporary Family Therapy, Volume 28, Number 4 /
December, 2006; Pages 497
IV = General Physical Health -- an individual's assessment of their
general physical health. Some possible leads to creating this measure include:
The relationship between religion/spirituality and physical health,
mental health, and pain in a chronic pain population. Pain , Volume 116 ,
Issue 3 , Pages 311 - 321; A . Elizabeth Rippentrop , E . Altmaier , J .
Chen , E . Found , V . Keffala
BMC Public Health. 2006; 6: 101; Published online 2006 April 21; Do
teachers have more health problems? Results from a French cross-sectional
survey; Viviane Kovess-Masf?y,1
Christine Sevilla-Dedieu,1 Carmen Rios-Seidel,1 El?a Nerri?e,1 and Christine
Chan Chee1, link below:
Health Qual Life Outcomes. 2006; 4: 10; Published online 2006
February 21. Using individual growth model to analyze the change in quality
of life from adolescence to adulthood; Henian Chen and Patricia Cohen; link
here:
BMC Public Health. 2008; 8: 48; Published online 2008 February 6.;
Working conditions, self-perceived stress, anxiety, depression and quality
of life: A structural equation modelling approach; Bin Nordin Rusli, Bin
Abdin Edimansyah, and Lin Naing; link here:
IV = Internet Usage --- degree (frequency) to which an individual
uses the internet and components of internet
Example measures of internet usage:
Online Network Size, Efficacy, and Opinion Expression:
Assessing the Impacts of Internet Use in China. Fei Shen, Ning Wang, Zhongshi
Guo and Liang Guo, International Journal of Public Opinion Research Vol. 21 No.
4, 2009:
http://ijpor.oxfordjournals.org/content/21/4/451.full.pdf+html
DV = Work-Personal Life Conflict (or Work-familty Conflict)
-- measure of how work life may interfer with personal life. Scale should be
general and work for both married and unmarried participants, and also for those
with and without children. Example:
IV = Social Disinterest/Sociability -- a measure of
the degree to which individuals prefer to interact with others socially; degree
to which individuals prefer time/activities alone or in groups. You can find
scales that measure social disinterest and also scales that measure sociability.
The concepts overlap. Example:
IV = Locus of Control (LOC) -- the extent to which
an individual believes they can control events around them, or the extent to
which they believe events are controlled by outside forces that cannot be
manipualted. A number of scales exist and each has many studies examining each
scale. Below is a link that discusses 28 versions of LOC with scale items also
presented.
Note, don't trust the this document to present correct content of the various
studies/scales they present. Be sure to read the original sources they present.
1
Christine Sevilla-Dedieu,1 Carmen Rios-Seidel,1 El?a Nerri?e,1 and Christine
Chan Chee1, link below: