2012 PROCEEDINGS - Public Relations Society of America

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to gauge the effectiveness of originally generated questionnaires by surveying the survey. This tool touches upon the many things that a researcher must be concerned about regarding survey construction. Researchers working with survey instruments look at not only at what to measure, but also at designing and testing questions that will be good measures. Reliability. Reliability was defined by Reinard (2001) as ―the internal consistency of a measure‖ (p. 202). It is the ―amount of error coders make when placing content into categories‖ (Stacks, 2011, p. 128). Producing stability, reliability provides consistent measures in comparable situations (Fowler, 2009). For example, something may be seen as reliable when two respondents are in the same situation, and answer a given question in the same way. It is the ―extent to which results would be consistent, or replicable, if the research were conducted a number of times‖ (Stacks, 2011, p. 345). Many suggestions are given to ensure reliability in survey instruments, most stemming from ensuring excellent word usage, word meaning, eliminating a neutral or non-response option, and term usage (Fowler, 2009). When considering ways to ensure reliability during instrument construction, there are three very common types of reliability frequently noted that must be addressed. Inter-rater reliability, test/retest reliability, and internal reliability are often found in research sources (Fink, 2009). Internal. Internal reliability, or internal consistency, is the extent to which the instrument is internally consistent as it measures knowledge or retention (Stacks, 2011). Testing internal reliability usually involves dissecting an instrument to see if questions regarding the same construct score in the same manner for respective respondents. This type of reliability is instrument focused. External. External reliability is reviewed to see at what levels a respective measure varies from use to use and is respondent focused (Fink, 2009). There are two types of external reliability that are commonly sought for. One is inter-rater or inter-coder reliability and the other is test/retest. Inter-coder reliability is ―the reliability of content analysis coding when the coding is done by two or more coders‖ (Stacks, 2011, p. 336). Furthermore, it is the degree to which different raters or observers give consistent estimates to the same phenomenon; sometimes it is used to ascertain which survey questions measure which constructs (McDavid & Hawthorn, 2006). Test/retest reliability ―involves giving the measure twice and reporting consistency between scores‖ (Reinard, 2001, p. 203). It is seen as a measure of reliability ―over time‖ (Stacks, 2011, p. 349). Validity. Validity ―is the term that psychologists use to describe the relationship between an answer and some measure of the true score‖ (Fowler, 2009, p. 15). Valid questions provide answers to correspond with what they were meant to answer, or ―the degree to which a measure actually measures what is claimed‖ (Reinard, 2001, p. 208). Stated differently, validity tests to see if the coding system ―is measuring accurately what you want to be measured‖ (Stacks, 2011, p. 127). For example, the answer to any given question should correspond with what the researcher is trying to measure (Fowler, 2009). This process is seen by many as subjective (Stacks, 2011). When discussing validity, Fowler (2009) suggested that ―reducing measurement error thorough better question design is one of the least costly ways to improve survey estimates‖ (p. 112). Furthermore, ―for any survey, it is important to attend to careful question design and pretesting and to make use of the existing research literature about how to measure what is to be measured‖ (p. 112). Researchers must be concerned with both internal and external validity when relevant. Internal. Internal validity ensures that an instrument‘s questions are sound. This includes face validity, content validity, construct validity and criterion related validity. Face validity 8
involves researchers reviewing the content of their respective measurement items and advancing an argument that they seem to identify what is claimed (Reinard, 2001). McKnight and Hawthorn (2006) offered that ―this type of measurement validity is perhaps the most commonly applied one in program evaluations and performance measurement‖ (p. 139). Reviewers, usually the evaluator or other stakeholders, make judgments about the questions posed and to what extent they were well written. Reinard (2001) cited value in content validity as it involves and includes more experts than face validity. Babbie (1995) stated that this validity uses experts and refers ―to the degree to which a measure covers the range of meanings included within the concept‖ (p. 128). McDavid and Hawthorn (2006) offered that ―the issue is how well a particular measure of a given construct matches the full range of content of the construct‖ (p. 140). There is no external criterion for the validity of subjective questions (Fowler, 2009) and usually, one must ask experts in the respective area to review the work and serve as impartial judges of this subjective content (Stacks, 2011). The respondents must understand the question, they most know the answer to enable them to answer the question, they must be able to recall the answer, and they must desire to tell the truth (Fowler, 2009). Construct validity is based on the ―logical relationships among variables‖ (Babbie, 1995, p. 127). ―Developing a measure often involves assessing a pool of items that are collectively intended to be a measure of a construct‖ (McDavid & Hawthorn, 2006, p. 140). Reviewing how well those respective subparts measured the construct is indeed construct validity (Stacks, 2011). Criterion related validity is the degree to which something is measured against some external criterion (Babbie, 1995). This, of course, is used in instances where research is attempting to make predictions about behavior or is trying to relate the research to other measures (Stacks, 2011). External. External validity is about ―generalizing the causal results of a program evaluation to other settings, other people, other program variations and other times‖ (McDavid & Hawthorn, 2006, p. 112). Some types of research aim to make inferences, calling for external validity. Methodology Data Collection Procedures Table 1 illustrates the data collection procedures of this study. Ten total focus groups were conducted as well as four pilot tests. In the initial stages of survey construction, three focus groups were conducted with public relations practitioners. These professionals gave input by answering questions about what should be measured to gauge client satisfaction and how those things should be asked. To ensure well-run focus groups, they were kept small, as Brown (2009) suggested. As organization is imperative, pre-determined questions were generated for said groups and professionals gave input about said questions. After three separate focus groups, a first draft of the survey questions were constructed based on common themes that surfaced during the conversations. These themes were found by reviewing the tapes of the focus groups and by reviewing memos and focus group documents. General questions, in support of the themes found, were then constructed. These questions were then presented to five more focus groups. These groups aided in the evolution of the questions by critically reviewing them and giving feedback. Again, these groups were recorded. The researcher observed and interacted with participants in an effort to see how the questions were interpreted and if they were perceived to measure worthwhile aspects of client 9
Page 1 and 2: 2 0 1 2 P R O C E E D I N G S S A N
Page 3 and 4: Table of Contents Research Papers A
Page 5 and 6: RESEARCH PAPERS 5
Page 7: campus public relations agency. Wor
Page 11 and 12: showed generalizibility. Therefore,
Page 13 and 14: References Allen, M. J. (2004). Ass
Page 15 and 16: Table 2 Small sample of the evoluti
Page 17 and 18: Table 4 Instrument Refinement Data
Page 19 and 20: Table 5 Instrument Refinement Data
Page 21 and 22: Appendix Firm‟s Logo Client Satis
Page 23 and 24: This section addresses how you feel
Page 25 and 26: Communication Tools/Tactics Created
Page 27 and 28: Communication Skills of the Student
Page 29 and 30: Additional Comments This section al
Page 31 and 32: Hope for the Future: Millennial PR
Page 33 and 34: difference with their work, and the
Page 35 and 36: with participants lacking discretio
Page 37 and 38: advise on the best strategy, not to
Page 39 and 40: opportunities.‖ She also added th
Page 41 and 42: answering all of these questions th
Page 43 and 44: 2011). The lack of control some Mil
Page 45 and 46: References Berger, B. K., & Reber,
Page 47 and 48: Looking Back, Looking Forward: A Th
Page 49 and 50: Internet and Web would help democra
Page 51 and 52: In 2010, Smith (2010b) used Twitter
Page 53 and 54: ecently reported implications of Wi
Page 55 and 56: Internet, as well as the role of cu
Page 57 and 58: In 2011, Freberg, Graham, McGaughey
Page 59 and 60:
Conclusion Figure 1 on the followin
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How can new media be used to increa
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DiStaso, M.W. (2012). Measuring pub
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Johnson, M.A. (1997). Public relati
Page 67 and 68:
McKeown, C.A., & Plowman, K.D. (199
Page 69 and 70:
Sweetser, K.D. (2007). Blog bias: R
Page 71 and 72:
Yang, A., & Taylor, M. (2010). Rela
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effective public relations practiti
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Additionally, many public relations
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evidence has suggested that public
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As indicated in the literature revi
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This study shows several areas in w
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Table 4: Distribution Across Employ
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Table 7: Frequency of Engagement in
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Table 8: Frequency of Use of KSAs b
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In the context of the public relati
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Lazarus and Folkman (1984) proposed
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identified as educators, and who sk
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practitioners were confronted with
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Organizational factors are importan
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extend one‘s social capital; in c
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Duhachek, A. (2005). Coping: A mult
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5. Instrumental Support I tried to
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Table 2 Hierarchical Regressions Pr
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elations effects are generally long
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includes the effects of distributed
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[INSERT TABLE 3 ABOUT HERE] The Gra
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David, P., Kline, S., & Dai, Y. (20
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Table 2 Augmented Dickey-Fuller uni
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Table 6 The result of the Toda and
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Communication Excellence and Public
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organize and integrate a group of p
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agencies in the southwestern United
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One participant expressed her perce
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Dozier, D. M., Grunig, L. A., & Gru
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programs, [...] and the delineation
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Freidson, 2001; Krause, 1996). Moll
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and larger public relations departm
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Table 1 Professionalism Dimensions:
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Estimation for the initial measurem
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Figure 3: Coefficients are unstanda
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Bowen, S.A. (2007). Ethics and publ
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Krause, E. A. (1996). Death of the
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Weis, D., & Schank, M.J. (1997). To
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environments: inclusive and transfo
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Purpose How do PRSSA faculty advise
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Findings The descriptive data indic
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advisers were ethical values and or
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The recognition for long-term facul
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PEDAGOGICAL POSTERS 157
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Professional Development Assignment
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shadow a professional opened my eye
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Building Student Networking Skills:
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incentive for demonstrating great i
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Populating the E- Portfolio: Reflec
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Table 1: Management, Message Design
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Students were assigned 25 minute bl
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Some basic Google Analytics reports
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4. Some keywords generate more clic
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Do this Click on “Content,” the
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Preparing Backgrounders and Proposa
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going out to eat. But what does tha
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Teaching and Mentoring Through Soci
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prevalent in journalism students wh
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normalization was utilized as the r
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But what about the students in grou
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“How a Graduate Practicum Class H
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O How did the client feel about the
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students practice skills and educat
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References Bagglione, S. (2006) Rol
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etween client preferences, practice
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References Austin, L.L., & Toth, E.
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webinars that will be used in one o
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Assessing the State of Public Relat
Page 207 and 208:
adequately prepares students for la
Page 209 and 210:
eviewed articles; the other two may
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The remaining points possible were
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2012 PROCEEDINGS - Public Relations Society of America

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