Short But Still Valid: Validating Single-Item Measures for Key Communication Science Constructs for Experience Sampling Research

With the full integration of media in everyday life, researchers are increasingly interested in methods that are able to capture individuals’ media experiences and effects as they occur in everyday life. One of the most suitable methods for such endeavors are experience sampling methods. While their use in communication science has grown considerably, we still lack validated measures which are short enough and applicable to the context of experience sampling studies. Across five studies, the current project aimed at testing the validity of single-item measures for 15 key communication science constructs (21 subconcepts in total) specifically for the experience sampling context. The findings show that the validity of many single-item constructs was high and comparable to the multi-item measures of the same constructs. As no guidelines exist yet on validation procedures for single-item constructs to be used in an experience sampling context, we provide recommendations and guidelines for an experience-sampling-specific procedure for the validation of single-item measures.