The goal for any social scientist doing a survey is to develop a rating on some attitude, value or opinion - a summated rating scale. Aimed at helping researchers construct more effective scales, Spector shows how to determine the number of items necessary, the appropriate amount of response categories and the most productive wording of items, how to sort good items from bad (including item-remainder coefficients and Cronbach's alpha) and how to validate a scale, including dimensional validity from factor analysis. Written in a user-friendly manner, the book concludes with a step-by-step account of how to develop a summated rating scale based on classical test theory.