scholarly journals A Review of Key Likert Scale Development Advances: 1995–2019

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew T. Jebb ◽  
Vincent Ng ◽  
Louis Tay

Developing self-report Likert scales is an essential part of modern psychology. However, it is hard for psychologists to remain apprised of best practices as methodological developments accumulate. To address this, this current paper offers a selective review of advances in Likert scale development that have occurred over the past 25 years. We reviewed six major measurement journals (e.g., Psychological Methods, Educational, and Psychological Measurement) between the years 1995–2019 and identified key advances, ultimately including 40 papers and offering written summaries of each. We supplemented this review with an in-depth discussion of five particular advances: (1) conceptions of construct validity, (2) creating better construct definitions, (3) readability tests for generating items, (4) alternative measures of precision [e.g., coefficient omega and item response theory (IRT) information], and (5) ant colony optimization (ACO) for creating short forms. The Supplementary Material provides further technical details on these advances and offers guidance on software implementation. This paper is intended to be a resource for psychological researchers to be informed about more recent psychometric progress in Likert scale creation.

SLEEP ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 44 (Supplement_2) ◽  
pp. A43-A44
Author(s):  
Michelle Persich ◽  
Sara Cloonan ◽  
Michael Grandner ◽  
William Killgore

Abstract Introduction Psychological resilience is the ability to withstand setbacks, adapt positively to challenges, and bounce back from the adversities of life. While the construct of resilience is broadly understood, the specific individual factors that contribute to the ability to be resilient and persevere in the face of difficulties remain poorly understood. We recently showed that psychological resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with a number of factors, including fewer complaints of insomnia, and others have suggested that sleep is an important contributor. We therefore tested the hypothesis that sleep quality and acute sleep quantity would combine to predict measures of psychological resilience and perseverance (i.e. “grit”). Methods We asked 447 adults (18–40 yrs; 72% female) to report the number of hours of sleep obtained the night before their assessment session (SLEEP), and complete several questionnaires, including the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC), Bartone Dispositional Resilience Scale (Hardiness), and the Grit Scale. Sleep metrics were used to predict resilience, hardiness, and grit using multiple linear regression. Results For resilience, PSQI (β=-.201, p<.00003) and SLEEP (β=.155, p<.001) each contributed uniquely to prediction of CD-RISC (R2=.08, p<.00001). Hardiness was also predicted (R2=.08, p<.00001) by a combination of PSQI (β=-.218, p<.00001) and SLEEP (β=.128, p=.007). Interestingly, worse sleep quality over the past month on the PSQI (β=.13, p=.008) in combination with more SLEEP the night before the assessment (β=.137, p=.005) each contributed uniquely to higher Grit (i.e., perseverance; R2=.03, p=.003). Conclusion Self-reported sleep quality and quantity were both independently associated with greater self-reported resilience, hardiness, and grit. While better sleep quality and more sleep the night before testing each uniquely predicted greater resilience and hardiness, a different pattern emerged for Grit. The combination of lower quality sleep over the past month followed by greater recent sleep duration was associated with increased perseverance. Whereas sleep quality appears to be more important for general resilience/hardiness, recent sleep time appears more important for the subjective perception of perseverance. Because these data are purely self-report and cross sectional, future work will need to determine the longitudinal effects on behavior. Support (if any):


2021 ◽  
Vol 54 (5) ◽  
pp. 1-35
Author(s):  
Shubham Pateria ◽  
Budhitama Subagdja ◽  
Ah-hwee Tan ◽  
Chai Quek

Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning (HRL) enables autonomous decomposition of challenging long-horizon decision-making tasks into simpler subtasks. During the past years, the landscape of HRL research has grown profoundly, resulting in copious approaches. A comprehensive overview of this vast landscape is necessary to study HRL in an organized manner. We provide a survey of the diverse HRL approaches concerning the challenges of learning hierarchical policies, subtask discovery, transfer learning, and multi-agent learning using HRL. The survey is presented according to a novel taxonomy of the approaches. Based on the survey, a set of important open problems is proposed to motivate the future research in HRL. Furthermore, we outline a few suitable task domains for evaluating the HRL approaches and a few interesting examples of the practical applications of HRL in the Supplementary Material.


Blood ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 136 (Supplement 1) ◽  
pp. 9-10
Author(s):  
Kevin E Todd ◽  
Meghan E Mcgrady ◽  
Anne Blackmore ◽  
Carrie Hennessey ◽  
Lori Luchtman-Jones

Background: Medication nonadherence rates as high as 50-75% have been widely reported in children and adolescents with chronic medical conditions. Anticoagulation nonadherence is associated with increased morbidity and mortality from hemorrhagic and thrombotic complications, reported mostly in older adult populations. As direct oral anticoagulant use increases, it is critical that pediatric clinicians understand the prevalence, adverse sequelae, and predictors of nonadherence for various anticoagulants prescribed for children and young adults to facilitate self-management in this population. To begin to address these critical knowledge gaps, this study explored the frequency of reported barriers to anticoagulation adherence and the relationship between reported barriers and adherence among a cohort of children and young adults who were prescribed anticoagulants through a pediatric thrombosis clinic. Methods: Data for this abstract were collected as part of a quality improvement (QI) initiative in the pediatric thrombosis clinic from May 2019 to November 2019. This QI initiative included the administration of a self-report measure which asked families to rate the presence/absence of 19 barriers to adherence and respond to two items assessing adherence ("How many anticoagulation doses did you/your child miss in the past 7 days?"; "Did you/your child miss any anticoagulation doses in the past month?"). Patients aged > 10 years (yr.) and/or their caregivers (for patients 0-17 yr.) visiting the clinic for anticoagulation follow-up completed the measure. With IRB approval, results from 161 anonymous measures from 130 families (n = 37 caregivers; n = 62 patients; n = 31 patient/caregiver dyads) were analyzed. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the most frequent barriers, rates of adherence, and concordance of barriers within patient/caregiver dyads. Linear regression was used to explore relationships between barriers and adherence after controlling for medication administration type (injections versus oral). To ensure only one measure per family was included in this analysis, the regression was run on the subset of measures completed by caregivers of children < 18 yr. and patients ≥ 18 yr. (n = 105 [37 caregivers + 62 patients + 31 caregivers from patient/caregivers dyad = 130 families; 130 - 25 families with missing adherence data = 105 families]). Results: Of 161 reporters, 120 reported at least 1 barrier. The most common barriers were medication side effects (n = 44), alterations in lifestyle secondary to medication (n = 44) and forgetting to take the medications (n = 37). The distributions of barriers by reporter and medication type are illustrated in Figure 1. Of 31 dyads, 26 reported 1 or more barriers. Only 6 caregiver/child dyads reported the same set of barriers. The remaining 77% (n = 20) of caregivers endorsed different barriers than their children. On average, patients and caregivers reported 1.85 barriers (SD = 1.95, range 0 - 10) and that they/their child took 96% of prescribed doses (SD= 9%, range = 71 - 100%). The linear regression was significant (F(2, 102) = 4.19, p = 0.02, R2 = 0.08). After controlling for medication type (p = 0.06), a greater number of barriers was significantly associated with lower adherence (t = -2.63, p = 0.01). Every one unit increase in total barriers (1 additional barrier reported) was associated with a decrease of .26% in adherence. Discussion: Although self-reported adherence was high, 75% of patients and caregivers reported 1 or more barriers to adherence. A greater number of barriers is associated with lower adherence, regardless of medication route, suggesting that addressing reported barriers might improve adherence. The spectrum of reported barriers was diverse, differing even within patient and caregiver dyads. Therefore, it is important to evaluate both patients and caregivers to fully assess the burden of barriers. Future studies are needed to evaluate the impact of addressing barriers and the relationship between anticoagulation adherence, barriers, and health outcomes. Figure 1 Disclosures Luchtman-Jones: Corgenix: Other: Provided discounted kits for study; Accriva Diagnostics: Other: Provided kits for study.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michiel van Elk

In this short report I present an overview of different unpublished studies that we conducted in my lab over the past years. Across the different studies we observed consistent effects of our experimental manipulations or variables of interest on self-report measures, but less so on behavioral and neurocognitive measures. For instance, religious people said they were more prosocial but did not donate more money (Study 1 & 2); participants experienced awe but this did not affect their body and self perception (Study 6 & 7); participants had mystical-like experiences but this did not affect the perception of their peripersonal space (Study 8 & 9); and self-reported magical thinking was unrelated to superstitious behavior (Study 11). In other studies, the hypothesized effects did not bear out as expected or were even in an unexpected direction. Participants perceived more agency in threatening pictures and scenarios, but this was not related to their supernatural beliefs (Study 3-5) and a death priming manipulation reduced rather than increased participants’ religiosity (Study 10). Opening the filedrawer through the publication of short reports like this one, will hopefully further increase transparency and will help other researchers to learn from our own trials and errors.


1968 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. S. Taylor

For more than sixty years theological thinking has been influenced by developments in modern psychology, as even a cursory examination of the theological literature of the past half century will indicate. The movement has been largely one way: a borrowing of methods and concepts from psychology by the theologian. Now this situation is changing. There are signs of the beginning of a two-way movement, with psychology learning something from theology as well as contributing to theology. We may be at the beginning of a significant period of creative dialogue between the two.


2017 ◽  
pp. 5-14
Author(s):  
Heather B. Clayton ◽  
Richard Lowry ◽  
Carmen Ashley ◽  
Amy Wolkin ◽  
Althea M. Grant

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Data are limited on the behavioral risk correlates of synthetic cannabinoid use. The purpose of this study was to compare the behavioral risk correlates of synthetic cannabinoid use with those among marijuana users. METHODS Data from the 2015 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a cross-sectional survey conducted in a nationally representative sample of students in grades 9 through 12 (N = 15 624), were used to examine the association between self-reported type of marijuana use (ie, never use of marijuana and synthetic cannabinoids, ever use of marijuana only, and ever use of synthetic cannabinoids) and self-report of 36 risk behaviors across 4 domains: substance use, injury/violence, mental health, and sexual health. Multivariable models were used to calculate adjusted prevalence ratios. RESULTS Students who ever used synthetic cannabinoids had a significantly greater likelihood of engaging in each of the behaviors in the substance use and sexual risk domains compared with students who ever used marijuana only. Students who ever used synthetic cannabinoids were more likely than students who ever used marijuana only to have used marijuana before age 13 years, to have used marijuana ≥1 times during the past 30 days, and to have used marijuana ≥20 times during the past 30 days. Several injury/violence behaviors were more prevalent among students who ever used synthetic cannabinoids compared with students who ever used marijuana only. CONCLUSIONS Health professionals and school-based substance use prevention programs should include strategies focused on the prevention of both synthetic cannabinoids and marijuana.


2018 ◽  
Vol 53 (9) ◽  
pp. 849-857
Author(s):  
Emma E Bright ◽  
Annette L Stanton

AbstractBackgroundAmong the approximately 70% of women with hormone receptor-positive breast cancer, endocrine therapies lower the likelihood of recurrence. Nonadherence to endocrine therapy predicts lower survival.PurposeWe examined concordance between self-reported and objective indicators of adherence and predictors of over-reporting endocrine therapy adherence among survivors of breast cancer.MethodsWomen with breast cancer (N = 112) receiving their initial endocrine therapy prescription completed three assessments at prescription initiation (Time 1), 1 month (Time 2), and 4 months later (Time 3). At Time 1, participants were provided a medication event monitoring system (MEMS) cap to assess adherence; it was collected at Time 3. Women completed items regarding self-reported adherence, depressive symptoms, cancer-related coping processes, and the patient–physician relationship.ResultsMEMS was significantly negatively correlated with the self-reported nonadherence measurements of occasionally forgetting (Time 2, ρ = −.29, p < .01; Time 3, ρ = −.24, p < .01), nonadherence in the past week (Time 2, ρ = −.53, p < .01; Time 3, ρ = −.45, p < .01), and nonadherence in an average week in the past month (Time 2, ρ = −.38, p < .01; Time 3, ρ = −.39, p < .01). Concordance in objective and self-reported adherence measures was evident in 83% of women at Time 2 and 73% at Time 3. Older age was significantly associated (p < .01) with discordance.ConclusionsFindings reveal moderate correspondence between objective and self-report measures, with self-report overestimating objective adherence. Clinicians should be aware when treating older breast cancer survivors that they are more likely to over self-report their endocrine therapy adherence.


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