A COMPENDIUM OF SCALES for use in the SCHOLARSHIP OF TEACHING AND LEARNING

- Be aware of whether the scale is unidimensional (giving you one total score) or
multidimensional (giving you different subscale scores). You cannot use a total score if
there are subscales.
- When scoring a scale, be sure you have reverse coded items as needed.
- Be cognizant of how long the scale is, as many long scales in a single study can cause
participant fatigue and threaten the internal validity of your study (i.e., are there
possible alternative explanations for the results/changes in outcome variables?).
- Order effects occur when participants’ responses to scales later in the study may not be
as reliable as responses early in the study.
- Although using scales exactly as published (same instructions, same response scales) is
optimal, you may sometimes have a need to modify scales slightly to suit your purposes.
Note that the published validity and reliabilities may no longer hold.
Best Practices in Writing Your Own Items
If there is no published scale for your purposes you then have to write your own items to get
the information you need. Although a full exposition of scale or item construction is beyond the
scope of this chapter (see Berk, 2006 for a great treatise on the same), there are some easy key
points to keep in mind.
Items can be of three main forms. You can ask open-ended questions (Describe your learning
experience in this class?), forced-choice items (Which of the following assignments did you best
learn from?), or Likert scale items (How much do you agree with the following on a scale
ranging from strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor disagree, disagree, strongly disagree?).
Sometimes participants can be asked to respond to a question using a numeric scale anchored
by adjectives (Rate the easiness of this course on a scale ranging from 1 = Easy to 5 = Hard). This
last type is called a semantic difference format.
Culling together best practices from a variety of sources (Berk, 2006; DeVellis, 1991; Morling,
2015; Noar, 2003) the following are suggestions of strong, concrete guidelines to keep in mind.
Your items should be:
- Clear and concise: Each statement should convey a specific idea that is easily
interpretable by the respondent. Try to limit yourself to about 10 words or less.
- Devoid of slang or jargon, or double negatives: Avoid language, words, or terms that are
specific to your field or expertise and that may not be meaningful (or known) to the
average reader.
- Unambiguous: Your meaning should be clear. It is a good idea to have friends read your
items and tell you what they think it means. This enables you to confirm your intent.
- Both positive and negative (to avoid responses sets): Write some questions so that the
accurate answer uses the lower end of the scale while other questions require answers
at the other end of the scale. For example both the following items measure high selfesteem,
but the second is negatively worded: “I feel good about myself” “At times I feel
like a failure.”
- Gender and culturally sensitive: Items should be applicable to all respondents. Try and
write generic statements as it pertains to sex, ethnicity, and culture in general.
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