On use of student samples for scale construction.

This research note responds to the question of whether a convenience sample of undergraduate students may be successfully utilized in concept development and in scale construction, and in what way the results are comparable to the findings of a representative national sample. The results of a Mokken analysis in both samples support the hypothesis that convenience samples have utility in concept development and in developing measures that can also be used in representative samples.

Structure of attitudes toward illegal immigration: development of cross-national cumulative scales.

This research examined the possibility of developing Mokken cumulative scales measuring attitudes toward illegal immigrants in a 9-nation sample. A total of 1,407 respondents primarily from national and regional universities participated in the surveys including the 20-item Illegal Immigration Scale. The scales displayed acceptable reliability with coefficients alpha ranging from .79 to .93. A Procrustes analysis yielded coefficients of congruence with the previously established three-factor solution. The amount of variance accounted for varied between 33.1 and 54.7%, supporting the presence of other factors in attitudes toward illegal immigrants. Mokken scale analysis yielded robust and economical scales in two clusters of national samples.