Test Development Proposal.
Construct: General Anxiety Disorder
Test Development Proposal
Overview of Assignment Details:
Throughout the course, students will conduct research on instruments that are currently used to measure a particular construct, develop a new instrument to measure that construct, administer the instrument to participants, and report on data arising from those administrations. Students are free to select any construct of their interest, such as some ability, a personality construct, or any kind of attitude or belief.
Over the six-week course, students will select a construct of interest (such as depression, anxiety, job satisfaction, etc.), conduct research on other popular instruments used to measure the same or similar construct, develop a 12-15 item instrument, administer the instrument to three to five participants, discuss the methods used to administer the instrument, provide a strengths and weaknesses/limitation section regarding the development of the instrument, and discuss ways to increase the reliability and validity of the instrument.
Test Development Proposal:
The goal of this final assignment is to integrate Step One, Step Two, and Step Three of your Test Development Proposal, as well as to discuss the methods used, provide a critique of the instrument you developed, and discuss the strengths and limitations involved in the study and with the instrument developed. The Test Development Proposal should be at least 15 pages (but not more than 25 pages), double-spaced, not including your title page, abstract, Appendix, and references page, and should contain the following sections:
1. A title page
2. Abstract
3. Rationale/Problem Statement: Explain your construct of interest. Make a case for why this construct is important to you, the field of psychology, or your specialization area. What specifically about your construct are you wanting to assess? Are there different characteristics or behaviors that can be assessed within your construct? For example, if measuring depression as a construct, would you want to measure the severity of depression or the symptoms related to depression? What are all the characteristics of depression? Would you be assessing all of the characteristics?
4. Research Question: Develop a research question addressing what you will be assessing. Literature Review: Taken from Step Two, along with any required edits. Write a seven to eight page literature review on your construct of interest and the five to seven instruments used to assess it. Thus, the literature review should explain your construct of interest thoroughly, as well as provide thorough reviews of the five to seven instruments used to measure it. This is slightly different from other literature reviews, whereby the idea is to review and critique the study and findings. For this literature review you are not reviewing the study but rather are reviewing and critiquing the instrument based on what studies and other research have found. The idea here is review the instrument and its usefulness in measuring your construct. Thus, what does the instrument measure, how reliable and valid is it, and what are its strengths and weaknesses? What is lacking in the instrument which paves the way for the necessity of your newly developed instrument? How are these instruments different from what you will develop? Use five to seven scholarly resources, including mostly research studies and articles related to your construct and the instruments used to measure it. Information should be drawn from appropriate sources, such as professional journals, test publisher websites, and dissertations. Information gathered from sources must be appropriately cited, following APA guidelines. Please be sure to include the following in your literature review:
§ A thorough discussion of each instrument you review for your construct, including the name of the test, what the test is used for, whether the test is appropriate for this area, what the reliability and validity of the test is, and what reviewers say about the strengths and weaknesses of it with regard to assessing this construct
§ What, in general, appears to be adequately assessed on each test with respect to the construct that you selected?
§ What does not appear to be adequately assessed?
§ Your literature review should justify your development of an assessment—is there a hole in what is currently being assessed that you can fill with your test? Make a case for why your proposed test would address an area that is not already well assessed.
5. Methodology: Provide detailed information regarding the scale that you developed, who the participants were, and how the scale was administered. Include the following:
§ Participant Selection: Explain who your participants were (e.g. total number, gender, age, etc.) and how you selected them. Be as specific as possible, as if you were giving directions to someone on how to choose and obtain the participants. Include instructions on how informed consent was provided to the participants. Be sure to indicate whether each participant received and reviewed the consent form provided.
§ Measures: Discuss the instrument you developed, including what the instrument measures, how many items were developed, what type of scale it is (e.g. rating scale, observation, multiple choice, etc.), and how you developed the instruments (e.g. did you use examples from pre-existing scales, etc.). Include a copy of the instrument in the Appendix.
§ Data Collection: Discuss how and where the data was collected (e.g. was the data collected via an internet survey, a group setting, individualized administrations, etc.). Was the data collected in an office setting, house, etc.? Were the participants provided with explicit instructions on how to complete the scale?
6. Discussion: Include the following information, using at least two to three scholarly sources to support your discussion:
§ Strengths and Weaknesses: Provide a thorough critique of your scale. What do you believe are the strengths of your scale? The weaknesses? Regarding test construction, are there any items that appear to be problematic or vague? Are the response choices clear and appropriate? Does the scale appear to measure the construct you have selected? How could you increase the validity of your scale?
§ Ethical Considerations: Could your participants be harmed by your scale, either in taking it or after it is finished? Address this and other possibly relevant questions of ethics.
§ Limitations: No research covers everything. What are the obvious limitations to this study/proposal?
7. References Page: The references page should be formatted according to APA style.
8. Appendix of your test development scale: Taken from Step Three, along with any required edits.
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