An elaboration, I'm currently looking for a scale that measures adolescents' trust in their parents, however, I've had difficulties finding one until I found a research conducted by Pathak et al. 2016. In this research, they were measuring trust in adolescents' towards their parents, however, when I looked at the original research for the trust scale that they used, which is Rempel et al. 1985, the scale in this study was more directed towards partners in a romantic relationship and did not mention any subjects that were parents. The study of Pathak et al. 2016 from my belief changed the "subjects" of Rempel et al. 1985 scale from measuring partner's trust in a intimate relationship to measuring trust in adolescent towards their parents.
TLDR; I'm still new to the research endeavors, Rempel et al. 1985 did a research on "close relationship" and I don't know whether we can generalize this into adolescents' trust in parents (I asked this because Pathak et al. 2016 did what I just asked).
References:
Pathak, Sweta & Sinha, Shubhra & Tiwari, Mithilesh. (2016). Role of Parental Control in Adolescents' Level of Trust & Communication with Parents. Recent advances in Psychology: An International Journal. 3. 129-140.
Rempel, J. K., Holmes, J. G., & Zanna, M. P. (1985). Trust in close relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49(1), 95–112. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.49.1.95
Here is something overlooked in most research that uses scales: Reliability and validity are always sample specific, setting specific, and time specific. Unfortunately, researchers do not always have the access to an adequate sample size and skills to check every time a scale is reused.
My suggestion: If you have time, pilot the study, especially if a different population to draw from, examine validity and reliability with simple statistics, and if you have the skills/large enough sample—run CFA. Often you can’t run a CFA for many reasons. Another possibility is using another scale with concurrent validity. Regardless, you can reuse the scale, but investigating with a pilot and correlations/reliability can bolster your study.
I agree with David Coker, but would also like to point out that the JPSP article you cite (Rempel, Holmes, & Zanna, 1985) as the original source of the scale has been heavily cited (ResearchGate lists 1,741 citations, Google Scholar shows 5,811, etc.). You may want to research the scale further, it may be that already has been validated (or is widely accepted) in alternative groups and populations, including for the adolescent / parent relationships that are of interest to you.
I agree with the above. The existing measure is widely cited and, if standardised, is designed to be used as is, rather than altered. However, what you can do is add further questions alongside it, be those additional existing measures or questions of your own. That would incorporate the scaling of the original measure and expand to suit your study (and participants). Or, you could use the scale as is, but do an additional piece of work (e.g. a focus group or a more creative approach like photo voice) to explore and explain the worlds of your participants. As others have recommended, pilot it all first, to see what works and if anything requires changing.
Yes, you can change the subjects in a questionnaire, but there are a few considerations to keep in on mind, Purpose of Changes, Impact on Results and Consistency and Validity
Yes, it is possible to change the subjects or topics included in a research questionnaire, although it should be done thoughtfully and with consideration for the overall research objectives and methodology.
Yes coker, you made valid a point. I agreed completely with your position.
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