Scale Development: Myths and Attitudes About Fatherhood

Abstract

Measurement is a necessary element of scientific research. The purpose for developing a new scale is the researcher’s belief that previous scales are insufficient, or they do not entirely cover the construct being studied. Scale development can be broken down into four phases—development, administration, evaluation, and finalization—consisting of eight steps. Phase 1 involves defining the construct to be measured (Step 1), generating an item pool (Step 2), having experts review the items (Step 3), modifying the item pool (Step 4), and formatting the draft scale based on expert feedback (Step 5). Phase 2 administers the draft scale to participants (Step 6). Phase 3 evaluates the responses for reliability and validity (Step 7). Phase 4 optimizes the scale’s length (Step 8). These eight steps of scale development will be demonstrated in this case through the recent development of the Myths & Attitudes About Fathers scale.

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