I need a scale to measure the kindness level of college students. Which instrument could you recommend?
Kindness is proven by deeds more than words. If I want to measure kindness in college students after knowing the poverty line in my country, I shall take one faculty in the university as a sample for research and then follow these steps:
1) The university's administration will be asked to give written permission & endorsement for conducting this novel research after I summarize the objectives of this study to it.
2) All the poor students of the sample faculty will be asked to register their names in the office of the secretary of the faculty if the family's revenue is below , say 3000 Turkish lira, without specifying how much as a matter of privacy. There has to be a deadline for this, say in 2 weeks.
3) The rest of students in the faculty will be asked to donate money for their poor fellows given choices (in lira): 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 … up to 100 and no more. The money will be enclosed inside an envelope with a simple short note written by the student without revealing his/her name and all this is placed inside a closed box. A time ought to be set (say the first week in the month of Ramadan).
4) When the box is open in front of the dean of the faculty & the secretary, the researcher's job is to record how many students donated 10 or 20 or 30 …etc. The researcher will take all the written notes to subject them to thorough study.
Of course, the money will be handed to the poor students from the secretary's office after a good announcement during that month.
When the process is completed, the levels of kindness will become obvious "from deeds firstly & words secondly". Then comes: results , discussion, and conclusions.
Thank you in advance for your detailed answer. I think it is very creative. I agree with you in that "kindness is proven by deeds more thn words" But I'm not sure if this kind of act represents "kindness". I should think about the confounding effects of "benevolenece", "mercy", "generousity"..etc. in such a case.
Thank you M. Mirrashid
Using a questionnaire is agood way. Indeed, I'm looking for a kindness scale to adapt it in my culture. But, if I could not find one, I'll develop it. Do you know any kindness questionnaire usable for college population?
The first thing that comes to mind is the Social Psychology experiments that involve the Bystander Effect (Darley and Latane), Obedience (Milgram), and the Stanford Prison experiment (Zimbardo). I would look into Zimbardo's current work with "The Heroic Imagination Project" to get some ideas.
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