This course is the first is a two-part scale development course series that introduces students to the systematic process of developing multi-item scale measures and survey instruments. Examples include measures of various social and psychological variables that might be assessed in health, medicine, journalism, or other related research areas. After a brief theoretical introduction to topics such as defining a construct and types of validity, we will turn to applied issues such as what is the optimal scale development process and how (and when) can you deviate from that process. We will also address practical issues around questionnaire design such as how to construct a “good” survey instrument that has a natural flow, minimizes participant burden, has appropriate response options and other common concerns in scale development and design. We will focus on real-life examples to demonstrate the scale development process. Although we will briefly discuss the kinds of quantitative techniques that are commonly used in the scale development process, this course will not cover the application of these methods. Quantitative methods for scale development will be covered in Part 2 of this course series.

This course will count as 6.0 CSS short course hours.