Construction of a situation-response scale to measure the attitudes of freshman and sophomore college women toward birth defects

UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
Geraldine Helen Zelfer (Creator)
Institution
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Advisor
Esther White

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to develop a valid scale to measure attitudes toward the prevention of birth defects and toward those who have birth defects. The situation-response measurement technique, which consists of a situation and five behavior responses for each item, was used in this study. A preliminary judges' study was used to improve the scale items and to give the writer an opportunity to become familiar with the statistical techniques to be used. In the preliminary study, thirty items were given to a panel of five judges. These judges were instructed to evaluate the importance of each item in the attitude scale and to weight the desirability of the responses for each item on a five to one scale. The judges were encouraged to make comments and suggestions concerning any aspect of the scale items. The rank-difference (rho) method of correlation was used to determine the degree to which the five judges agreed with each other in weighting the responses. An average item coefficient of correlation was computed by averaging the five judges' intercorrelations for each item. The lowest intercorrelation was .05 and the highest was 1.0. The criteria used to determine which items would be sent to a final panel of judges were: (1) the average item coefficient of correlation must be .700 or better, (2) three of the five judges must consider the item either desirable or essential, and (3) the five responses for each item must include three different rankings with at least one rank below 3 and one rank above 3.

Additional Information

Publication
Thesis
Language: English
Date: 1972

Email this document to