The paper focuses on the use of attitude measures in evaluation research. It is suggested that attitude measures can assist evaluators in surmounting the problems of assessing program effectiveness both in process and impact evaluations. Attitude change can be conceptualized as the intended output of programs, as intervening between program variables and behavior or as proxy measures of behavioral target variables that are not readily measurable. Attitude measures can play avital role in evaluation research if an adequate methodology is employed.
An analysis of the conditions common to 3 types of situations in which the r between verbally expressed att's about behavior & the behavior itself are likely to be high: voter turnout in elections; movie attendance; & brand preference. 3 corresponding studies are discussed: Paul K. Perry (see SA A1913); Paul K. Perry, 'Marketing and Attitude Research Applied to Motion Pictures,' paper presented at the Internat'l Gallup Conference, New Delhi, Mar 26, 1968, privately printed; & Irving Crespi, 'Toward a Definition of 'Attitude' ' in Conrad Hill, Ed, INSIGHTS INTO APPLIED BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH (Kingston, RI: U of Rhode Island, 1969). The concern was with the predictive power of the highly specific attitude measurements obtained in these 3 studies. It is felt that improving behavioral prediction requires test items having stimulus properties very similar to those present in the actual situation. In all 3 studies, att's were treated as multidimensional, with no 1 dimension acting as a 'predisposing' determinant of behavior. Instead of conceptualizing act's as general predisposing variables which are expected to have common effects in a wide variety of situations, att's were treated as highly specific combinations of beliefs, preferences, & intentions, each held with varying degrees of intensity. The validity of this approach is affirmed. A multidimensional, functional conceptualization of att's is far more productive empirically than the mechanistic view that att's are predispositions, that is, intervening variables in a sort of complicated pattern of conditioned behavior. Att's originate, develop, stabilize, change, & atrophy in a dynamic process of role playing. M. Maxfield.
One of the shortcomings of the implicit racial attitudes literature is that it relies almost exclusively on white subjects. Arguably, there are two possible reasons for this. First, these measures were created to address issues of social desirability among whites who harbor negative racial attitudes toward blacks. Second, social desirability pressures and antiblack affect were not viewed as significant among black respondents (see Craemer 2008). This assumption is problematic because it treats black racial attitudes as a monolith. Rather than examining black racial opinion as a complicated and multivalenced set of evaluations about their own group and others, there has been an over emphasis on measures of group solidarity (e.g., linked fate). Understandably, bloc voting and cohesive policy opinions have partially justified this focus; however, the black community is more diverse than presidential election turnout suggests. Price (2009) argues that linked fate, the most common measure for black racial identity, is not adequately problematized as a potentially positive or negative measure of psychological attachment. Here, we hope to build on this literature by using an implicit black identity measure.
The purpose of this study was to examine the predictive nomological validity of employee engagement using a set of three job attitudes commonly linked to employee engagement. Prior research concerned with the nomological network of employee engagement has predominantly considered bivariate relationships, thus missing the opportunity to fully understand the intricate and interrelated relationship between employee engagement and job attitudes. Scale- and subscale-level correlations were obtained from a previously published set of survey responses ( n = 1,580) to partition employee engagement variance components associated with every possible combination of the three job attitude predictor set (2k− 1 = 7). Results suggested that across both overall measures, job satisfaction contributed the most unique variance to employee engagement, followed by job involvement and organizational commitment. Findings indicated that when applying employee engagement in both research and practice, care should be taken in scale selection across models—especially those involving like constructs. This study provides evidence of the importance for considering a construct's nomological network within the broader management and human resource–related literature. This research not only advances the theoretical understanding and research of employee engagement but also assists practitioners in deploying precise, well-crafted measures of engagement in the field.
