title: Construction of rating scales for measuring attitudinal and psychological characteristics of drug abusers.
abstract: The purpose of the paper is to show the construction of 8 Likert-type rating scales for measuring 8 attitudinal and psychological characteristics of drug abusers. They are: attitude toward drug taking, interpersonal relationships, self-concept, personal values, risk-taking tendency, motivation, rebelliousness, and pleasure seeking. A random sample of 20 drug abusers and their 20 nondrug controls individually matched for sex, approximate age, race, educational stream, and neighborhood was employed. The procedure of construction is discussed in detail, which includes definition of rating scales, review and comments of judges, item selection, and validation of rating scales. The final form of these 8 rating scales with 12 items each was obtained. They are shown to have presumably satisfactory face validity and content validity as well as high reliability ranging from .83 to .98.
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Work and Psychology, National University of Singapore.
authors.forename: T H
authors.initials: TH
authors.lastname: Ong
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001290:Attitude; D005260:Female; D006556:Heroin Dependence / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D002189:Marijuana Abuse / Q000523:psychology*; D010556:Personality Tests; D011594:Psychometrics; D012846:Singapore