Self-Regulation Questionnaires (SRQ)

This questionnaire concerns the reasons why children do their school work. The scale was developed for students in late elementary and middle school. (The comparable SRQ for adults is referred to as the Learning Self-Regulation Questionnaire.) Consequently, its format is slightly different from the format of the Self-Regulation Questionnaires intended for adults. First, the repsonses to each item are on a 4-point scale rather than a 7-point scale because we have found that more than 4 possible responses is not optimal for the children who complete the questionnare who are as young as about 8 years of age. Second, we typically have the children respond right on the questionnaire by circling the correct response rather than using an asnwer sheet. Again, this is easier, especially when doing a group administration to a class of students. Of course it is more work for the researcher to get the information off the questionnaires, but it is worth the trade off. Third, there are more items on the SRQs for children than the SRQs for adults in order to ensure good reliability. Fourth, the “very true” response comes first for each item, whereas on the adult questionnaire it comes last. To score the scale: Very True is scored 4; Sort of True is scored 3; Not Very True is scored 2; and Not at All True is scored 1. This way, a higher score will indicate a higher level of endorsement of that regulatory style. The SRQ-A uses four subscales: external regulation, introjected regulation, identified regulation, and intrinsic motivation.

This questionnaire concerns the reasons why children engage in various prosocial behaviors. The scale was developed for children in late elementary and middle school and uses the same format as the Academic Self- Regulation Questionnaire (SRQ-A), which is the other SRQ developed for children. As with the SRQ-A, the responses on this SRQ-P are on a 4-point scale (rather than the 7-point scale used for adults), and the very true response comes first for each item, so the scale is scored as follows: Very True is scored 4; Sort of True is scored 3; Not Very True is scored 2; and Not at All True is scored 1. This way, a higher score will indicate a higher level of endorsement of that regulatory style. The SRQ-P uses three subscales: external regulation, introjected regulation, and identified regulation. Because these kinds of behaviors result from internalization rather than being done naturally, there is not an intrinsic motivation subscale to this questionnaire.

This questionnaire concerns the reasons why a person exercises regularly, does gymnastics, works out, or engages in other such physical activities. It is structured so that it asks one questions and provides responses that represent external regulation, introjected regulation, identified regulation, and intrinsic motivation. The basic issue concerns the degree to which one feels autonomous with respect to exercising or engaging in physical activity. Below are three versions of the scale, one each for working out, exercising regularly, and doing gymnastics. Each one is followed by information about scoring it. These questionnaire are slightly different from each other not only in terms of the question asked but also in terms of the items. The items are, of course, very similar--that is the introjected items on one scale are similar to the introjected items on the other scales. However, the three versions were developed by different researchers, and it seems that they are wholly comparable scales. Several studies using these questionnaires have recently been conducted, but none has yet been written for publication. Thus, at this time, there are no published research reports that have used these scales.

Also called Christian Religious Internalization Scale (CRIS) This questionnaire concerns the reasons why a person engages in religious behaviors. The questions were written for research with a Christian population, but could be easily adapted for other religions. The questionnaire asks why people engage in four religious behaviors, each of which is followed by three reasons. In all, there are 12 items on the SRQ-R. The questionnaire was developed and validated by Ryan, Rigby, and King, (1993). There is a long form of the questionnaire with 48 items, but analyses revealed that the current 12- item version is as psychometrically sound as the longer version and is far more economical. The scale has only two subscales: Introjected Regulation and Identified Regulation. Work with the longer scale revealed that these two subscales represented the dynamically meaningful reasons why people engage in religious behaviors and that the external regulation and intrinsic motivation subscales did not add to the validity of the scale. Below is the actual scale, followed by information about scoring.

This questionnaire concerns the reasons why a person is in a particular friendship. It asks four questions about being friends with a particular person, and provides responses that represent external regulation, introjected regulation, identified regulation, and intrinsic motivation. The basic issue, of course, concerns the degree to which one feels autonomous with respect to participating in the friendship. Below is the actual scale, followed by information about scoring.