Class Preparation

Key Materials for Item Development and Testing

You need to develop multiple individual items to represent each variable in your research. Item development has three key components.

  • The items must measure the theoretical construct. This is not easy. A construct is an abstract concept or idea. A variable is a measurable action, beief, value, norm -- some human activity -- that provides a discrete score for the action, norm, etc. An item is a specific query that the individual can answer that is a valid and reliable indicator of the variable.

  • The item must be answerable by the respondents. This means that the grammar and language used has to be easy for respondents to understand AND you have to make sure that the individual actually knows about the topic, the subject of the question. I have no experience raising children. I cannot answer questions about any aspect of child rearing - I just won't know the answer. It will not exist in my mind. A surprisingly high number of items ask people to answer questions that they cannot answer.

  • The item has to be scorable -- have a sound basis for producing a measurable (in either the quantitative or the qualitative sense) score. The scoring rubric has to provide consistent, reliable scores for all participants.

    • This document provides an excellent discussion of item development. Pages 9-13 deal specifically with writing items, but the entire document is very helpful.

    Hathcoat, John D., Sanders, Courtney B. & Gregg, Nikole. (2016) Selecting and Designing Instruments: Item Development, Reliability, and Validity. James Madison University.

    Review the Instrument Development Flow Chart. This will help you keep "on track" of where you are in the development process.