Development of a Scale to Measure Perceived Administrative Burden, With Broad Applicability Beyond Direct Policy Clients

Abstract

Individuals form perceptions about the degree of administrative burdens associated with public agencies and programs, even without being (potential) policy clients themselves (e.g., a wealthy person's view of administrative burdens experienced by welfare program applicants) or without referring to a specific instance (e.g., perceptions of bureaucratic hurdles in the federal government overall). This study develops and validates a scale of perceived administrative burden that is applicable beyond direct policy clients to broad audiences and political stakeholders. The scale underwent psychometric evaluation using large-scale, representative citizen samples from the US and South Korea (n = 3000). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses on randomly split samples confirmed a unidimensional latent structure and the scale's construct validity. Cronbach's alpha and composite reliability indicated strong internal consistency, while a high average variance extracted, alongside additional correlational analyses, supported convergent and discriminant validity. We discuss the scale's potential applications in exploring how perceived administrative burden shapes policy processes, political behavior, and public administration.