Survey Research Measurement Issues in Evaluating Change : A Laboratory Investigation

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Abstract
Efforts to operationalize the alpha/beta/gamma change typology have suffered from a notable limita tion. Virtually all have been conducted in field set tings, thereby limiting the degree of experimental con trol over outcome criteria. Recognizing this limitation, the present study employed a laboratory methodology to investigate two research questions related to scale recalibration (beta change) in temporal survey re search. Application of this methodology permitted ran dom respondent assignment, exact replication of stim uli, and systematic time interval variation for the pretest-posttest design. Furthermore, the use of these procedures permitted testing the use of the retrospec tive design in assessing organizational change. Impli cations of the findings for the measurement of change are discussed.