Introduction
Aggressive behavior is characterized by causing pain, harm, or injury to another person. This behavior is present in people at all stages of life for multiple reasons. In adolescents, it may extend severely, resulting in fatal injury, violence, and death because of quick reaction to knives and guns (Borah, 2021; Girard et al., 2018). It is crucial to identify early symptoms of aggressive behavior among adolescents to develop interventions, such as mindfulness, to help manage the problem. The current study outlines the steps and decisions researchers can take to create a self-report summative scale to identify aggressive behavior in adolescents.
Self-Report Summative Scale Steps and Decisions
Reviewing Information for the Development of a Summative Scale
This is the first step in developing the questionnaire. Aggressive behavior results in severe mental and physical problems among adolescents. During this period, they face a critical issue in managing this behavior, which becomes particularly challenging when it is not intervened in. According to Salimi et al. (2019), aggression can be understood through a social cognitive theory, which posits that people learn to be aggressive through observation and imitation.
In adolescents, aggressive behavior usually manifests because of exposure to violence and acts resulting in injury, harm, or pain (Muarifah et al., 2022). The behavior is learned from their role models, such as parents, friends, family members, and teachers. Role models play a vital role in promoting the development of aggressive behavior, as identified by a self-assessment scale.
It is fundamental to identify aggression signs among adolescents using a self-report scale, considering that during this age, their decisions hugely affect their adulthood. Investigating this area requires recognizing the difference between aggressive behavior and violence. The difference is pivotal for the researcher when creating the self-report scale, as violence focuses mainly on physical assault, while aggression involves mental, physical, and verbal causes of harm. This decision is advantageous in helping the researcher design an assessment scale that primarily investigates aggression, rather than focusing on identifying violent behavior. The disadvantage is that the researcher must omit the association between violent behavior and aggression, considering that the two are related.
Developing and Prioritizing Potential Questions
This is the second stage in the development of the self-report scale. The stage involves identifying suitable questions to help collect the desired data on the construct. The questions designed by the researcher must be specific to ensure that the collected data is the intended one (Lee, 2006). For instance, the current research focuses on the construct of aggressive behavior, which implies that the researcher must ensure the questions primarily collect data that addresses the construct under investigation.
In this step, the researcher must ensure that the questions submitted for validity measure the required concept. This stage is crucial for ensuring content validity, as the researcher develops adequate queries that cover the construct being investigated and its relevance to the research area (Bajpai & Bajpai, 2014). The key verdict in this step is determining the questions that are considered adequate. The importance of this conclusion is that it will enable the researcher to develop many questions and later decide which one is suitable for inclusion in the summative scale. However, this decision raises many questions that may be challenging to prioritize.
Careful Assessment of Potential Questions
This is the third step, in which the researcher examines the possible reactions of the participants based on the selected questions. The validity of the questions is also assessed to determine whether they are clearly understood and whether participants can respond effectively to them. In this step, the researcher must ensure that the potential queries meet face validity. The purpose of this validity is to ensure that the questions can assess the desired measure (Maltby et al., 2010). The potential questions the researcher has planned to use must collect appropriate data.
Moreover, the researcher must select questions that identify individual differences when measuring the construct, thereby discriminating among participants’ outcomes. In the process, the potential queries will be able to meet concurrent validity, indicating that the scale can discriminate between participants based on their scores on the instruments used (Rust et al., 2021). Selecting discrimination questions is a crucial decision, as it enables the instrument to accurately measure and distinguish participants’ aggressive behavior, which is particularly significant when designing interventions to manage aggression. Nevertheless, the challenge in this step is that selecting questions that discriminate against participants may lead to choosing those that diverge from aggressive behavior characteristics such as violence.
Deciding On the Types of Questions to Be Asked
This is the fourth stage in the development of the self-report summative scale. The researcher’s objective determines the types of questions to be asked. In the current study, the researcher investigates aggressive behavior, which significantly differs from one person to another. In this phase, the researcher must ensure that the selected queries have reduced acquiescence (Rust et al., 2021).
Acquiescence is a phenomenon in which participants respond to a questionnaire with a positive rating, regardless of the scale’s content. In this process, the researcher can decide to reverse some of the items (Rust et al., 2021). The benefit of this verdict is that it reduces the chances of acquiescence. However, this decision poses the challenge of altering the meaning of the questions, rendering them ineffective and leading to incorrect data collection.
Furthermore, this stage also faces the problem of social desirability bias. This occurs when participants respond to questions in a socially acceptable manner (Rust et al., 2021). For example, aggressive behavior is linked with violent characteristics, and having biased queries affects the response. Social desirability queries may include “Do you bully your peers in school?” and “Do you make intentional comments to hurt others?” The biases in these questions can be reduced by designing them with a focus on the question’s structure and content.
Determining Specific Wording for Every Question
At the fifth developmental stage, the researcher must ensure that the wording of the questions yields suitable data collection. The researcher must ensure appropriate language is used when designing the survey. Proper language selection is a vital decision, as it varies with age and profession (Rust et al., 2021). It is beneficial in the current study because it ensures that participants are comfortable with the language structure of the queries, resulting in comprehensive responses to the questions. The challenge of this verdict is that when the language used is undesirable, participants may not respond effectively to it.
The terms used in the questions should be simple; slang and abbreviations can lead to multiple interpretations, which may compromise face validity. The phrases should include a single idea in every question (De et al., 2021). Not sticking to these results leads to ambiguity and misinformation, where participants may respond to queries without considering the appropriate response. The researcher can emphasize multiple phrases deemed necessary when responding to questions about aggressive behavior by capitalizing, underlining, bolding, or italicizing them.
Double negatives when phrasing questions should be avoided to prevent confusion among participants (Rust et al., 2021). The keywords used in the questions should be limited and unbiased. For instance, biased keywords may discourage or encourage various participants (Yusoff et al., 2021). The researcher should avoid structuring the question with keywords that portray indecisiveness. This includes options such as “don’t know,” which may promote undesirable outcomes.
Determining the Structure of the Questionnaire
This is the sixth step in designing the summative scale and entails the survey’s structure. The flow of the queries is essential when developing the questionnaire, as it creates logic. The critical decision in this step is identifying which type of question should appear first. This is necessary to boost participants’ morale. This decision is crucial in promoting effective data collection when applied appropriately. Nonetheless, poorly structured questions may yield fewer responses, thereby affecting the survey’s accuracy and reliability.
Questionnaire Evaluation
This is the final step in developing the self-report summative scale. It involves conducting a pilot study, in which questionnaires are used to collect data from individuals with characteristics similar to those of the participants to be included in the actual research study (Rust et al., 2021). For instance, in the current study, the participants are college students; therefore, the researcher can use an adolescent group in a nearby high school.
The pilot study must include a large number of participants to ensure that the construct being investigated is accurately measured during the primary research (Lee, 2006). This decision is crucial to ensuring that the data are valid and reliable. The challenge of conducting a pilot study lies in the composition of the participant group.
When data is collected from an undesirable lot, it may result in significant changes to the instrument, affecting actual study findings due to incorrect modifications. With the collected data, the researcher can assess the questionnaire’s reliability using Cronbach’s alpha (De et al., 2021). This can be calculated using various tools such as Excel and SPSS. Assessing reliability is essential to ensuring the instrument’s internal consistency.
Conclusion
Development of a self-report summative scale for the construct of aggressive behavior, which comprises seven crucial stages. At every stage, critical decisions are necessary to scale up, ensuring it accurately records the required measures. However, these decisions have advantages and disadvantages that the researcher must consider when designing the self-report summative scale. Every step is crucial, and the researcher must focus on meeting the requirements of each stage to develop a reliable and valid instrument.
Self-Report Summative Scale
The scale rating is a five-point Likert system from “1,” extremely uncharacteristic of me, to “5,” extremely characteristic of me.
- I have been pushed so hard, resulting in fights.
- I have used threats against certain people.
- I disagree with people frequently.
- During frustration, I usually let it out openly.
- I can control my temper when angry.
- Sometimes I am bitter about certain things.
- When mad, I break things.
- I feel insecure when people are friendly, which keeps me wondering what they want.
References
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