Development of an instrument to measure volunteer's motivation in working with people with AIDS.

A scale, "Attitude Towards Volunteer Motivation," was developed to measure motivation of volunteers who work with people with AIDS (PWAs). Fifty five questions were initially determined to have content validity. They were then administered to a random sample of youth services volunteers (n = 150) and members of an AIDS volunteer organization (n = 247). Results of factor analysis produced five subscales. Reliability of the constructed scale was established. It was correlated with a theoretically related scale to establish construct validity. Results of this initial research are promising and suggest further testing of the instrument.