An attitude is a dispositional readiness to respond to certain institutions, persons or objects in a consistent manner which has been learnt and has become one’s typical mode of response.”
—Frank Freeman
“An attitude denotes the sum total of man’s
inclinations and feelings, prejudice or bias, pre-conceived notions, ideas,
fears, threats and other any specific topic.”
—Thurstone
Steps in construction of Likert
attitude scale:
1) Discussion: Informally discuss the
issues with the people, extension workers, experts, NGOs and also consult secondary
sources. For an example if an investigator wants to develop a scale on attitude
of schizophrenic patients among schizophrenic patients among caregivers,
discuss the topic within caregivers, staff nurses who is giving care to schizophrenic
patients, experts in the field such as psychiatrist, psychologist, psychiatric
nurse, psychiatric social workers and NGOs.
2) Review: Review related literature to the
particular topic of interest. Refer journals, books, articles and net sources.
Literature review helps in the process of item generation for the scale11
3) Writing statements: Based on the
discussion and extensive review, collect a set of such statements on the issues.
Make the items simple and straight forward so that respondents are able to fill
out the scale quickly and easily writing positive and negative statements:
Write acceptance or rejection statements, it should imply a different degree of
favorable or unfavorable attitude towards the issue in which an investigator
intended to assess. Statement or item could be positive or negative. Positive
statements should be objective statements which are acceptable by those having
the attitude, and just as unacceptable by those having the attitude, and just
as unacceptable to those not having it. For an example “I frequently use
library resources to go beyond the required reading”. Negative statements
should be objective statements which are acceptable to those not having the attitude
and just as unacceptable to those having it. For an example “Home work
assignments are designed to meet course requirements. It is impractical in time
and energy to do more than is required” 13
4) Create an item pool: Continue writing
items, both positive and negative, until item pool at least twice the size the
size of instrument intended14For an example “If an investigator plan to have 20
items in final scale, then create an item pool of 40 items”.
5) Editing of items: After having collected
as many relevant statement as possible, the next step is to go through each
item carefully15 Criteria for editing: Avoid the statements which refer to past
rather than to present for an example “At one time small pox affected large
number of people”. Avoid using statements that are factual or capable of being
interpreted as factual. For an example “Using power point slides is a modern
medium in educational technology”. Avoid irrelevant to be endorsed by almost
every one or no one. For an example “Admitted in private hospital proves expensive”.
Avoid irrelevant to the object under consideration. For an example “In future surely
there will be treatment for AIDS”. Avoid more than one thought and double
negative statements. For an example “Most of the people do not think that AIDS
does not cure”. Avoid certain word that may not be understood by the
respondents. For an example “Depot injection is more advanced form”. Avoid
certain such universals such as all, always, none, never, often etc as these
introduce ambiguity. Avoid such words as only, just, merely etc. Avoid biased
languages. It is important to avoid using emotional words or phrases in items.
Avoid double barrel questions, where the item actually combines two different questions
into one. For an example “Do you think that the nursing service department is
prompt and helpful?” Any items that include the word “and” should be closely examined
to see if it is actually a double barrel question. Avoid non monotonic
questions, where people could provide the same answer to a question for different
reasons. For an example “Only people in the nursing should be allowed to wear
white uniform”. Some could disagree with item either because they feel that
nurses should be allowed to wear white uniform or because they feel that no one
should be allowed to wear white uniform16
.
6) Rank: After editing, select the items
and give rating to the items. Rank orders the items on clarity and
potency.Choose an equal number. Five categories are fairly standard. Some scale
constructors use seven categories and some prefers four or six response
categories with no middle category. All of these seem to work satisfactory17
7) Scoring: The points given for each
response depend on whether the statement is positive or negative. The person who
strongly agrees with a positive statement gets maximum points. One who strongly
disagrees with a positive statement gets the minimum points. For the purpose of
scoring, assign the numerical value of 5 to strongly agree, 4 to agree, 3 to
undecided, 2 to disagree and 1 to strongly disagree. In case of the item is
negative, reverse the order of scoring. 5 to strongly disagree, 4 to disagree,
3 to undecided, 2 to agree and 1 to strongly agree
8) Write instructions which clearly explain
how to select response on the form. Write in simple and easily understandable
language.
9) Formatting the scale: Randomly order the
selected items. Use letters to indicate choices such as SD, D, U, A, SA.
10) Validity: Validity is the extent to
which the measure provides an accurate representation of what one is trying to measure.
Validity includes both systematic and variable error components. A systematic
error, also known as bias, is one that occurs in a consistent manner each time something
is measured. For an example “A biased question would produce an error in the
same direction each time it is asked”. Such an error would be systematic error.
A variable error is one that occurs randomly each time something is measured.
For an example “A response that is less favorable than the true feeling because
the respondent was in a bad mood (temporary characteristic) would not occur each
time that individual’s attitude is measured”. In fact, an error in the opposite
direction (overly favorable) would occur if the individual were in a good mood.
This represents a variable error.19
11) Reliability: The term reliability is
used to refer to the degree of variable error in a measurement. Reliability is
the extent to which a measurement is free of variable errors. This is reflected
when repeated measures of the same stable characteristic in the same objects
show limited variation20
