Methodology Guide
Scale Development, From Start to Finish
From construct extraction to EFA, CFA, validity testing, and methodology section drafting. A stage-by-stage guide to the modidoc pipeline.
- C9August 20, 20267 min read
Final Checks Before Fielding a Questionnaire — Item Order, Reverse Coding, and the Codebook
What has to be settled before a questionnaire goes out: how item order shapes responses, how to handle reverse-coded items, and what a codebook must contain to keep the analysis reproducible.
- C8August 20, 20268 min read
SEM Sample Size and Model Identification — Pre-Checks Before You Collect Data
How to check whether your structural equation model is estimable before collecting data: identification conditions, sample size determination, why G*Power does not apply to SEM, and bootstrapping indirect effects.
- C7August 20, 20268 min read
Is AVE Below 0.5 a Dead End — Judging Below-Threshold Results and Writing Limitations
How to judge results that fall short: AVE under 0.5, poor CFA fit, partial invariance. When to go back and revise, when to carry the shortfall as a stated limitation, and how to write limitations reviewers accept.
- C6August 20, 20268 min read
Measurement Invariance Before Group Comparison — Multi-Group CFA Steps and ΔCFI Thresholds
Why group comparison requires measurement invariance: the four-step multi-group CFA sequence, the ΔCFI and ΔRMSEA thresholds, and how to justify partial invariance in a manuscript.
- AM-1August 20, 20268 min read
Writing the Methods Section — Reporting Scale Development and APA-Format Statistics
How to turn a scale development process into a methods section: which decisions to report and in what order, how to present CFA results in APA format, and how to disclose the use of AI tools.
- C5June 29, 20268 min read
What to Do When CFA Fit Indices Fall Short — A Complete Guide to Judging CFI, RMSEA, and SRMR
Thresholds for CFI, RMSEA, and SRMR, plus five real judgment cases. Covers how to respond when CFA fit falls short of the criteria and how far you can reasonably go with modification indices.
- C5June 20, 20269 min read
We Re-Validated a Published Scale — A Reproduction Analysis of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES)
We reproduced the validation of the 60-year-old Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) on public response data. Cronbach's alpha matched the literature, and the dimensionality debate, the Item 8 problem, and the single-factor CFA misfit all surfaced exactly as reported. A real case of scale reproduction testing.
- C4June 12, 20268 min read
EFA Pre-Check Before Data Collection — Cronbach's Alpha, KMO, and Deciding the Number of Factors
Explains how to confirm suitability with the KMO and Bartlett's test before running an exploratory factor analysis (EFA), how to decide the number of factors with parallel analysis, and how to check internal consistency against the Cronbach's alpha threshold.
- C3June 12, 20267 min read
What Is Cognitive Interviewing? How to Solve Survey Items That Respondents Read Differently
Explains the concept of cognitive interviewing and the Think-Aloud and Probing techniques, how to detect interpretation mismatches in survey items in advance, and the recommended number of participants.
- C2May 26, 202610 min read
Survey Item Design — Item Generation, Linguistic Flaw Detection, and Common Method Bias Prevention
How to generate Likert-scale items from factor definitions, detect double negatives, double-barreled questions, and leading language, and prevent common method bias through reverse items, marker variables, and design-stage controls.
- C1May 26, 20267 min read
Construct Extraction and Factor Structuring — A Complete Guide to Scale Development Step 1
How to extract measurable constructs from a research abstract, define factors operationally, and validate content validity using CVR and CVI before writing a single survey item.