Subsequently, they received a message from their negotiation counterpart (which had actually been written by us; all participants within a given study received exactly the same message) and needed to select one out of several response options.
To the questions asking how the participants felt when experiencing positive and negative encounters, there were several response options, such as: 'I felt respected/wronged', 'I was happy/disappointed', 'I felt satisfied/became angry', etc.
Respondents who reported having driven in the past 30 days were asked how often they had engaged in several specific behaviors; response options were regularly, fairly often, rarely, just once, and never.
Percentages can add to more than 100%, as several of the response options were not mutually exclusive.
Back translation of the IPSS (Hong Kong Chinese version 1) identified several questions and response options which were not equivalent to the original English instrument.
Participants reported leisure-time physical activity (sport activities or exercise) during the last 12 months, with six response options: daily, several times per week, once a week, several times per month, once a month, and seldom.
Finally, although the Rasch analyses suggested the number of response options for several items could be reduced from a 5- to a 4-point scale by combining responses, the distinction between "none" and "mild" and between "mild" and "moderate" was considered clinically important and the decision was made to retain the five-point scaling.
Finally, although the Rasch analyses suggested the number of response options for several items could be reduced from a 5- to a 4-point scale by combining responses, the distinction between "none" and "mild" and between "mild" and "moderate" was considered clinically important and the decision was made to retain the 5-point scaling.
At the end of the program, the initial self-assessment survey was repeated, with the addition of several questions allowing free-text response options specifically aimed to assess the value and effectiveness of the program to participants.
TV-viewing habits were operationalized through the question, "How often do you watch television?" with the following five response options: 1) several shows a day, 2) one show per day, 3) one show every other day, 4) one show per week, and 5) less than one show per week.
At this point in time it is not recommended to use it in a longitudinal setting measuring change for several reasons: 1) the questions and response options have not been designed for the purpose of being responsive to change, and 2) the questionnaire does not have a summary score and change scores are therefore reliant on the validity of scores on single questions.
