Research Methods

Deliverables
For this assignment, construct and evaluate an attitude questionnaire.

Activity Details
Decide on a topic about which attitudes will be tested. Topics might include issues relating to current events (e.g., attitudes toward recycling, the President’s policies), individual attitudes (e.g., gender roles), or any other topic that interests you. The only restriction is that you choose a nonsensitive topic (e.g., don’t develop a questionnaire on sexual or religious attitudes).

Step 1: Format Your Questionnaire

Design the format of your Questionnaire using Chapter 9 as a resource.

Step 2: Follow the below directions in creating your Questionnaire:

Your questionnaire should consist of at least 15 Likert items measuring the same attitude. A Likert item consists of a statement followed by a five-point rating scale on which the subject indicates the degree of agreement with the statement. The following is an example of a Likert scale:

In addition to the Likert items evaluating subjects’ attitudes, you should come up with a few items (four or five perhaps) that evaluate something about the subjects. These items should be the ones that you feel will correlate with the attitude measured on your questionnaire. The following are some examples relevant to the predictor Items:

• Political party affiliation

• Educational level

• Occupation

• Income

Step 3: Complete your Questionnaire.

Whatever you choose to measure, keep in mind that these items must also be carefully constructed (see Chapter 9 in the text for information on how to construct questionnaire items). Design these with an eye toward correlating them with participants’ attitudes.