Survey development methods and best practices

Self-Efficacy

Develop an operational definition of self-efficacy.

Self-efficacy is the estimated likelihood of successful completion of a complex task by an individual. In a counseling setting, this would mean successful treatment for a patient's complex personal or interpersonal complaint. A counselor with higher self-efficacy perception would be more likely to take diverse and complex cases, while a lower self-efficacy perception would result in a more uniform and less-challenging caseload.

Construct a 10-item survey to measure the self-efficacy of the counseling students.

Gender (F or M)

Rate your overall preparedness to enter professional counseling (Likert scale 1-10)

Did you take the online or land-based program? (A or B)

Do you expect to graduate the program?

How well do you perform in most classes in general?

What is your overall GPA in the Master's program?

How motivated were you to finish this program? (Likert scale 1-10)

Was there more direct participation or observation in your class experience? (Likert scale 1-10, with direct participation at 1 and observation at 10)

9. Rate how much you agree or disagree: This class was much more difficult at the beginning than the end (Disagree =0 to Strongly agree = 5). Alternative: Tests were more difficult at the beginning of the course than at the end (agree or disagree).

10. I had supportive family and friends encouraging me to complete my degree (Disagree = 0 to Strongly agree = 5).

Briefly discuss your rationale for the items you included.

Question 1 asks gender on the premise that genders perceive their performance differently on various tasks (Bandura 2002, p. 279). Question 3 is the operative separation between online and land-based groups and allows for anonymity. Question 2 is a direct self-efficacy ranking, with questions 4, 5 and 6 attempting to cross-question this result with more generalized efficacy as per Bandura, 2006 (176), with GPA attempting to quantify how close efficacy matches assessed performance. Question 7 attempts to control for motivation, so different efficacy results can be compared for similar motivation levels as per Bandura (1977, p. 205), with similar justification for Q. 10. Bandura (1977) argues vicarious learning is weaker than direct experience (197), so question 8 attempts to quantify how participatory the class experience was, built to test if land-based classes are more participatory than an online class.

Briefly describe your method of data collection and data analysis.

All students in both groups will take the survey as part of their required coursework, to minimize self-selection by either highly or poorly motivated groups, after Institutional Review Board approval of use on human subjects. I will compare group means on question 2 for groups A and B. where Ho = µB-µA = 0 and Ha = µB-µA > 0. I will then compare results to question 2 for identical answers to questions 7 and 10, to control for motivation and external support. I will then compare results between genders within and between the A and B. groups to detect any significant differences in perceptions. Results to questions 4 and 5 will either support or contradict answers to question 2, revealing whether self-efficacy is general or restricted to this particular program. Comparing correlation between questions 6 and 2 will indicate rough difference between students' perception of self-efficacy and their demonstrated performance. Correlation coefficients for any of the variables will be tested for after comparing p-scores for significance and effect strength (Voelz, 2006, p. 5).

Explain the challenges of constructing a survey of this nature.