Abstract:

This paper reviews 53 articles of measurement scale development published in six tourism journals (i.e., Annals of Tourism Research,Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Journal of Travel Research, Tourism Management, Tourism Science, and Tourism Tribune) between 1998 and 2017 to elucidate the developmental stages, topical areas and scale development process and statistical standards in the field of tourism studies. It is found that: (1) Studies on measurement scale development in tourism could be diachronically divided into two stages, namely the initial stage (1998-2007) and the quickly-developing stage (2008-2017). (2) The major research areas where measurement scales have been mostly developed are tourists (e.g., tourists’ perceptions, attitudes, and satisfaction), destination (e.g., destination image, brand equity, and sustainability), and residents (e.g., residents’ perceptions of and attitudes towards tourism development, and host-guest interactions). (3) Regarding the process of measurement scale development, the commonly followed procedures are generation of scale items, data collection, and assessment of reliability and validity. However, some measurement scale development studies have not strictly followed the procedures in terms of specification of the domains of construct, purification of scale items, pilot data collection, explorative factor analysis, and confirmative factor analysis, to a varying extent. On the contrary, most of the analyzed articles have strictly followed the psychometric standards in measurement scale development and reported the statistical analysis results that justified the psychometric properties of the scales that were newly developed and/or validated. The findings derived from this paper are believed to be able to guide future measurement scale development studies in the field of tourism in terms of research topics, development procedures, and psychometric properties required.

Key words: measurement scale development, tourism studies, developmental stage, scale development procedure, psychometric properties

摘要：

本文通过对1998—2017年间发表在国内外6本旅游学术刊物上的53篇论文的统计分析,对旅游研究领域量表开发的历程、主题、流程规范与心理测量学标准进行了回顾。研究发现：（1）国内外旅游领域的量表开发研究可以划分为缓慢起步期（1998—2007）和快速发展期（2008—2017）两个阶段。（2）主要的研究领域为游客、旅游目的地和目的地居民。（3）在量表开发流程方面,初始测项确定、正式样本收集、信度与效度分析是目前旅游研究领域量表开发论文普遍遵循的步骤;但在构念范围确定、初始测项净化、问卷预试、探索性因子分析和验证性因子分析等5个步骤上,不少论文尚未严格遵守基本流程。（4）绝大部分论文都严格遵守量表开发的心理测量学标准,汇报了符合心理测量学标准的统计结果。本文的研究发现能为旅游领域后续新量表的开发提供主题领域选择以及流程与技术指标上的参考。

关键词: 量表开发, 旅游研究, 发展历程, 量表开发流程, 心理测量学标准