Review the following excerpts from journal articles. As you do so, consider the following questions:
• What is the purpose of the described scale?
• What do I learn about the development and format of the scale/questionnaire?
• What do I learn about the reliability of the scale?
• What do I learn about the validity of the scale?
Academic Dishonesty Student Survey (McCabe, 1992). The Academic Dishonesty Student Survey is a widely used measure to assess academic dishonesty. It measures the frequency of 19 specific student behaviors that are rated on a 4-point scale ranging 1 (never), 2 (once), 3 (more than once), and 4 (not relevant). For this study, 18 items from McCabe's scale and 2 additional items ("Cheating in a class taught by an instructor you do not like" and "Cheating in a class taught") were included in the measure of Academic Dishonesty. Responses of 4 (not relevant) were treated as missing data. A high score signifies more dishonest behavior. With a sample of 11,818 participants, McCabe (1992) reported a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of .87 for the total scale score. In the current study, the alpha value for the entire scale was .93. There was a clear pattern of significant positive correlations between all the three subscales of the Academic Dishonesty Scale and Norm/Rule Violations, suggesting that those who show a lack of academic integrity in college may be more likely to violate norms and rules of society or the workplace in the future. Because one of the Norm/Rule items referred to cheating on an important future test, these results were examined with the critical item removed. Again, the three factors correlated significantly with imagined future norm/rule violations (r s = 43, .49, and .43, respectively).
An original self-report survey containing 27 items was used to assess attitudes about mobile phone use in college auditorium and demographic information. The attitudinal items were loosely grounded in the literature reviewed above. For these items, participants were asked to respond using a 5-point Likert-type scale with response options ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree. Prior to data collection, a pilot study with 31 participants was conducted to help with instrument development. Written comments were solicited from the pilot participants to evaluate item clarity. A preliminary factor analysis and Cronbach's alpha scores were used to assess the strength of the relationship among variables in each factor. A Cronbach alpha of at least .70 was used to further determine whether an item should be retained in the scale subsequent to factor analysis. Six items were removed from the analysis for not meeting these criteria. The remaining 14 items yielded four interpretable factors for attitudes about mobile phone use in college classrooms and policies.