A Laboratory Project in Scale Design: Teaching Reliability and Validity

Abstract

Students in an Experimental Psychology class designed a scale to measure sensation seeking. The project involved students in many aspects of questionnaire development and evaluation, providing students an opportunity to experience the difficulties of measuring abstract concepts and giving them practice in evaluating the reliability and validity of those measures. Students produced a reasonably valid and reliable scale. The project has been successfully repeated, using different constructs, in several subsequent classes.