2012 PROCEEDINGS - Public Relations Society of America

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
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