CHAPTER V

MEASUREMENT & SCALING

OF
CONCEPTS

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 Learning Objectives

At the end of this chapter students will be able to:

• Understand what is to be measured and how
• Understand the need for conceptual and operational
definitions in research
• Distinguish among nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio
scales
• Describe the criteria of a good measurement
• Understand and apply the methods for assessing
reliability and validity

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 THE NATURE OF MEASUREMENT
1. The process of assigning numbers or scores to attributes
of people or objects.
2. The process of describing some property of a
phenomenon of interest by assigning numbers in a
reliable and valid way
Precise measurement requires:
a) Careful conceptual definition – i.e. careful definition
of the concept (e.g. loyalty) to be measured
b) Operational definition of the concept
c) Assignment rules by which numbers or scores are
assigned to different levels of the concept that an
individual (or object) possesses.
 1. Conceptual Definition

Concept - A generalized idea about a class of
objects, attributes, occurrences, or processes.

Examples: Gender, Age, Education, brand
loyalty, satisfaction, attitude, market orientation

Construct - A concept that is measured with
multiple variables.

Examples: Brand loyalty, satisfaction, attitude,
market orientation, socio-economic status

Variable - Anything that varies or changes from one
instance to another; can exhibit differences in value,
usually in magnitude or strength, or in direction.
 1. Conceptual Definition

Concepts must be precisely defined for effective
measurement.
• Some concepts are concrete and quantifiable while others
are abstract and qualitative.
• The nature of concepts calls for clearly defining them
conceptually and operationally.
2. Operational Definition/Operationalization
 Operational definition - A definition that gives meaning
to a concept by specifying what the researcher must do
(i.e. activities or operations that should be performed) in
order to measure the concept under investigation.

Operationalization - The process of identifying scales that
correspond to variance in a concept.
 5.2. Types of Scales
• A scale may be defined as "any series of items which
is progressively arranged according to value or
magnitude into which an item can be placed
according to its quantification
• A scale is a continuous spectrum or series of
categories.
• The purpose of scaling is to represent, usually
quantitatively, an item's, a person's, or an event's
place in the spectrum.
• The four types of scales are:
nominal,
ordinal,
interval, and
ratio.

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 Scale continued

Nominal Scale
• The numbers or letters assigned to objects
serve as la­bels for identification or classification.
E.g. Coding of males as 1 and females as 2.

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 Interval scale continued

Ordinal Scale
• Arranges objects or alternatives according to their
magnitude in an ordered relationship.
• Respondents are asked to rank order their
preferences, in ordinal values
• Does not say anything about the distance or
interval between the values
e.g "excellent," "good," "fair," or "poor."

Ordinal Scale Properties

• Uniquely classifies
• Preserves order
• Win, place, & show
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Interval Scale

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 Interval Scale
Not only rank order values but also measure order (distance)
in units of equal intervals.
• The location of the zero point is arbitrary- does not signify
absence.
• price index
• The classic example of an interval scale is the Fahrenheit
temperature
• lack of an absolute zero point.
Mathematical and Statistical Analysis of Scales
Interval Scale Properties
• Uniquely classifies
• Preserves order
• Equal intervals
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 Ratio Scale
• Ratio scales have absolute rather than rela­tive
quantities.
• For example, money and weight are ratio scales
because they possess an absolute zero and interval
properties.
• Zero represents absence of the given attribute.

Ratio Scale Properties

• Uniquely classifies
• Preserves order
• Equal intervals
• Natural zero
– Weight and distance

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Type of Scale Numerical descriptive

Operation Statistics

Nominal Counting Frequency in each

category
Percentage in each
category

Ordinal Rank ordering Mode, Median,

Range,
Percentile ranking

Interval Arithmetic operations on Mean, variance

intervals between numbers Standard deviation

Ratio Arithmetic operations Geometric mean

on actual quantities Harmonic mean
Coefficient of variation
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5.3. CRITERIA FOR GOOD MEASUREMENT

Three major criteria for evaluating

measurements:
• Reliability,
• Validity, and
• Sensitivity.

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 The Goal of Measurement Validity

• Face validity or content validity refers to the

subjective agreement among professorial that a
scale logically appears to reflect accurately what it
purports to measure.

• Criterion validity is an attempt by researchers to

answer the question "Does my measure correlate
with other measures of the 'same' construct?"

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 Criterion validity

• Criterion validity may be classified as

either:
• concurrent validity or
• predictive validity,
• In concurrent validity new measure is taken
at the same time as the criterion measure.
• Predictive validity is established when an
attitude measure predicts a future event.

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 Reliability
• Reliability is the degree to which measures are free
from random error and therefore yield consistent
results

• When the outcome of the measuring process is

reproducible, the measuring instrument is reliable.
• It is the degree to which measures are free
from error and therefore yield consistent
results.
• Two dimensions underlie the concept of
reliability:
– repeatability and
– internal consistency..
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 Reliability

R E L IA B IL ITY

S TA B IL ITY IN TE R N A L C O N S IS TE N C Y

TE S T R E TE S T E Q U IV A L E N T F O R M S S P L ITTIN G H A L V E S

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 Reliability

• Two problems with measures of test-retest reliability:

• The premeasure (or first measure) may sensitize the
respondents to their participation in a research
project and subsequently influence the results of the
sec­ond measure.
• the time between measures is long, there may be
attitude change or other maturation of the subjects.
• correlation between the first and the second
administration

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 Reliability
• The homogeneity of the measure.
– An at­tempt to measure an attitude may require
asking several similar (but not identical) questions
or presenting a battery of scale items.

• Internal Consistency
• The technique of splitting halves is the most basic
method for checking internal consis­tency when a
measure contains a large number of items.

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 Reliability and Validity on Target

Old Rifle New Rifle New Rifle

High validity Sun glare
Low Reliability High Reliability Reliable but
Not Valid
(Target A) (Target B) (Target C)
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 Sensitivity

• A measurement instrument’s ability to accurately

measure variability in stimuli or responses.

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 5.4. ATTITUDE MEASUREMENT
• An attitude is an en­during disposition to respond
consistently in a given manner to various
aspects of the world, including persons, events,
and objects.

• Three components of attitude have been

disclosed:
affective,
cognitive, and
behavioral.
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 Affective

• The feelings or
emotions toward an
object

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 Cognitive

• Knowledge and
beliefs

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 Behavioral

• Predisposition to action
• Intentions
• Behavioral expectations

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 Components of Attitude

• The affective component reflects an individual's

general feelings or emotions toward an object.

• The cognitive component represents one's

awareness of and knowledge about an object.

• The behavioral component reflects expectations

or a predispo­sition to action.

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 4.4.1. Techniques for Measuring Attitudes
Measuring Attitudes

 Ranking
 Rating
 Sorting
 Choice

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 The Attitude Measuring Process

Ranking- Rank order preference

Rating - Estimates magnitude of a characteristic
Sorting - Arrange or classify concepts
Choice - Selection of preferred alternative

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Ranking tasks require that the respondent
rank order a small number of objects in
overall performance on the basis of some
characteristic or stimulus.

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Rating asks the respondent to estimate the
magnitude of a characteristic, or quality, that
an object possesses. The respondent’s
position on a scale(s) is where he or she
would rate an object.
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Sorting might present the respondent with
several concepts typed on cards and require that
the respondent arrange the cards into a number
of piles or otherwise classify the concepts.

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 Choice between two or more alternatives is another
type of attitude measurement - it is assumed that the
chosen object is preferred over the other.

 Physiological measures of attitudes provide a means

of measuring attitudes without verbally questioning
the respondent

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 ATTITUDE RATING SCALES

•Rating is a measurement task that presents respondents

with several concepts and
requires the respondent to estimate the
magnitude of a characteristic or quality that an object
possesses.

•There are different types of rating scales.

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 Numerical Scales
Numerical scales have numbers instead of semantics or words as
response options to identify categories (response positions).
The scale items can have a 5-point numerical scale or a 7-point
numerical scale; and so on.

Ranking
•An ordinal scale asks respondents to rank order (from most
preferred to least preferred) a set of small number objects or
attributes.
•Paired Comparisons
•Respondents are provided with two preferences at a time and
then asked to pick the one they preferred.

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