Construct Development

Part I
Construct Development

  1. Choose a construct to measure.

      Instructor Evaluation Survey

  2. Create an Operational Definition of the construct: Using three reference sources.

      This test is designed to evaluate the instructor's effectiveness of teaching and motivating the class.   The measuring instrument used will be the Likert scale of five.   Sampling for the test is 20 students ages 19-40, six male, 14 female, 10 reside in rural areas, six reside in urban areas and four are from another county.   There are 5 African Americans, 4 Hispanics and 11 Caucasians, five are single, eight are married and seven have significant others.   Administration of this test after each class concludes, compared with the previous class evaluation.
      According to the references below, there are several factors involved in making a operational definition.   One of the most important things stressed is that the test questions focus on observable behaviors (Armstrong, 1998).   There are other   important ideas to consider, what is the test designed to measure and what is the objective of the measurement (Ribes, 2003). What is the best format for this test, who benefits from the test (Murphy, 2004)?

      References:
      Armstrong, J.S. Are student ratings of instructors useful? American Psychologist       0003-066X, 1998, Vol. 53, issue 11.
      Murphy, K.R.   Teacher evaluations, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol.89 (1) (Feb. 2004). pp. 258-164.
      Ribes, I. E. "What is defined in operational definitions? The Case of Operant Psychology," Behavior and Philosophy (2003).

      3.   Five items used to sample the domain
        • Respect
        • Interaction
        • Preparedness
        • Knowledge
        • Style

  3. Select the scaling appropriate and justify why.
      The scaling I chose to use is the Lickert scale it is easy to use and reported as reliable and valid for over 30 years. This survey is one-dimensional,...