Margaret is completing her master’s degree part time at her University’s Business School while working for a large multinational consumer goods corporation.
She has chosen to undertake her research project with her company and, in turn, they have specified a variety of potential research problems for her to choose from, so she choses the research problem she felt most able to address based on the skills developed during the programme.
This then forms the research question for her research: ‘To what extent do consumers of multinational consumer goods identify with Brand X and how?’
After evaluating possible strategies and data collection techniques, Margaret chose to use a survey strategy and collect the data using a questionnaire to address her research question.

She then approached her project tutor to ask how to develop the questionnaire. He advised her to read the academic literature, identify the most appropriate theoretical framework and take detailed notes of the scales that could be used to reflect the theoretical framework’s constructs.
Her project tutor also advised that Margaret address key questions when assessing the survey scales using the checklist in her research methods textbook (Box11.8).

As Margaret was searching the literature for scales, she came upon a scale that appeared appropriate. As she read the article detailing the development of the scale, Margaret went about addressing each of the questions in the checklist (Box11.8). To begin, she took notes regarding the suitability of the scale for her research to address the first group of questions in the box. As a way of rationalising scale development to examine the construct in question, the researchers cited literature, which Margaret then read. Under close inspection, Margaret noted that this research was poor methodologically with some leading questions and too small a sample.

Margaret found the cited literature on which the argument justifying the scale to measure the concept was not scientifically robust as it was not reproducible using a methodologically sound approach. Closer inspection of the cited literature revealed that the research was very much reliant on leading questions by the researcher. She thought this was problematic as a researcher could then use this poorly undertaken research to justify the development of a scale to examine the concept. And yet, when Margaret looked at the cited literature for the survey scale, this poorly undertaken research had actually been used to support the development of the scale.