The instrument was developed in Norway in the Norwegian
language. The items were directly based upon the theory and no other
instruments were used in the construction of the scale. In total 32
items were formulated that were meant to reflect each of the upper
four stages (2a, 2b, 3a, and 3b) of moral development, i.e. eight items
for each stage. The items were constructed by the participants in the
research group after thorough studies of Kohlberg's theory (Kohlberg,
1976, 1984). Item content and item formulation of every single item
were considered satisfying for testing when consensus was reached
among the researchers. Content validity of these items was safeguarded
through expertise advice from a university professor in the
field. Each item could be answered on a Likert-type scale ranging from 1 to 5, where 1 stands for “not agree at all” and 5 for “agree
completely”. An item score of 3 was assigned the neutral value
“neither disagree nor agree”.