Measurement and Scaling (1)

8/8/2019 Measurement and Scaling (1)

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Lecture 13: Measurement


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A researcher must first ask the question: What is to be measured?

Example, you want to measure a persons height.

We write five categories:

(a) Quite tall for his age

(b) Moderately tall for his age

(c) About average for his age

(d) Moderately short for his age(e) Quite short for his age


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We can compare a childs height to 10 other neighbourhood

children and say that we give the tallest child the rank of 1and the shortest child the rank of 11.

We can use some conventional measuring unit such as feetand inches or centimetres


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Before measuring something, the business researcher must identify the

concepts relevant to the problem. Concept:A generalized idea about a class of objects, attributes,

occurrences, or processes Concepts such as age, gender and no. of children are relatively concrete

properties and present few problems in measurement. Other characteristics of individuals or properties of objects may be

abstract. Concepts such as loyalty, power and job satisfaction are difficult to

measure. E.g. brand loyalty may be measured by percentage of persons purchases

going to one brand in a given period of time, sequence of brandpurchases etc.


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A concept must be given an operational definition before it can bemeasured.

Operational Definition:Specifies what the researcher must do to measure

the concept under investigation, that is the activities or operationsnecessary in order to measure a concept.

Some concepts such as grievances are difficult to measure, a concept likepersonnel turnover is less difficult.


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Media skepticism - The degree to whichindividuals are skeptical toward the realitypresented in the mass media. Media skepticismvaries across individuals, from those who are mildlyskeptical and accept most of what they see and hearin the media to those who completely discount anddisbelieve the facts, values, and portrayal of realityin the media.


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Media Skepticism

Operational Definition

Please tell me how true each statement is about the media. Is it very

true, not very true, or not at all true? 1. The program was not very accurate in its portrayal of the

problem. 2. Most of the story was staged for entertainment purposes. 3. The presentation was slanted and unfair.


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Operational Definitions help the researchers specify the rules ofmeasurement.

E.g.Purpose of an advertising campaign is to increase the amount oftime people spend in a departmental store.

So operationally define shopping time. Definition: Time defined as entering the store till the time you are given

receipt at the checkout counter. The time then recorded via a stopwatch.


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Series of items arranged according to value

for the purpose of quantification

A

continuous range The purpose of scaling is to quantitatively

represent an items, persons, or an eventsplace in the scale.


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Nominal ScaleA scale in which the numbers or letters

assigned to objects serve as labels for

identification or classification, ameasurement scale of the simplest type

Simplest scale of assigning

number 1 to males and 2 to

females in questionnaires


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Ordinal ScaleAn ordinal scale arranges objects or

alternatives according to their magnitude

A typical ordinal scale in business research

asks respondents to rate career

opportunities, brands and companies as

Excellent, good, fair or poor.

Researchers know excellent is higher than

good but not by how much.


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Interval ScaleA scale that not only arranges objects or

alternatives according to their magnitudes but also

distinguishes the order of arrangement in units ofequal intervals.

e.g. the Fahrenheit scale is e.g. of interval scale.

The zero is only relative.

Due to absence of absolute zero value,cant say 36 is three times 12,

only the interval distance is three times greater.


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Ratio Scale

A scale having absolute rather than relative qualities

and possessing an absolute zero, where there is absence of a givenattribute.

e.g. in terms of money and weight.

Such as a person has zero ounces of gold, so zero in absolute terms.


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Uniquely classifies

Preserves order

E

qual intervals Natural zero


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Uniquely classifies

SammySosa # 21

Barry

Bonds # 25


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Uniquely classifies

Preserves order

W

in, place, & show


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Uniquely classifies

Preserves order

E

qual intervals ConsumerPrice Index (Base 100)

Fahrenheit temperature


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Uniquely classifies

Preserves order

E

qual intervals Natural zero

Weight and distance


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ATTRIBUTESA single characteristic orfundamental feature that pertains to anobject, person, or issue

COMPOSITEMEASUREA compositemeasure of several variables to measure asingle concept; a multi-item instrument

Income is single attribute Social class indexmeasure based on three

weighted variables of residence, income andeducation.


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The ability of a scale to measure what was intendedto be measured


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The degree to which measures are free from randomerror and therefore yield consistent results


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FACE OR CONTENT

CONCURRENT PREDICTIVE

CRITERION VALIDITY CONSTRUCT VALIDITY

Validity


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Face or Content Validity:Agreement among

professionals that a scale logically appear to

measure what it is intended to measure. Criterion Validity: The ability of a measure to

correlate with other measures of the sameconstruct e.g. length

Construct Validity: The ability of a measureto confirm a related hypothesis generated

from a theory based on the concepts.


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TEST RETEST

STABILITY

EQUIVALENT FORMS SPLITTING HALVES

INTERNAL CONSISTENCY

RELIABILITY


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Ameasurement instruments ability to

accurately measure variability in stimuli or

responses. A dichotomous response category such as

agree or disagree does not allow to recordsubtle attitude categories.Adding strongly

agree, strongly disagree dimensionsincreases the sensitivity of response and

makes it more accurate.

Measurement and Scaling (1)

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