Measurement and Measurement/Attitude scales

Measurement and Scaling

Measurement means assigning numbers or other symbols to characteristics of objects according to certain pre-specified rules.
One-to-one correspondence between the numbers and the characteristics being measured. The rules for assigning numbers should be standardized and applied uniformly.

Rules must not change over objects or time.

Measurement and Scaling

Scaling involves creating a continuum upon which measured objects are located.
Consider an attitude scale from 1 to 100. Each respondent is assigned a number from 1 to 100, with 1 = Extremely Unfavorable, and 100 = Extremely Favorable. Measurement is the actual assignment of a number from 1 to 100 to each respondent. Scaling is the process of placing the respondents on a continuum with respect to their attitude toward department stores.

Scale Nominal

Primary Scales of Measurement

Numbers Assigned to Runners Rank Order of Winners
Third place Second place First place Finish
7 8 3

Ordinal

Finish

Interval

Performance Rating on a 0 to 10 Scale

Time to Finish, in Seconds

8.2

9.1

9.6

Ratio

15.2

14.1

13.4

DEFINITION OF ATTITUDE
A learned predisposition to respond in a consistently favourable or unfavourable way to some aspect of the individuals environment

COMPONENTS OF AN ATTITUDE
An attitude is an underlying construct
As an operational variable, it is an evaluated belief that predisposes the holder to behave in one way or another. Three components
a belief component the affective component the behavioural component

THREE COMPONENTS
Three components
a belief component I believe that.

the affective component emotionalevaluative component the behavioural component what the person does on the basis of the two previous components

Attitude Measurement
Most widely used approach to attitude measurement is the application of standardized attitude questionnaires or scales An attitude scale usually consists of sets of statements or words relating to an attitude item.

Individual items in an attitude scale are usually not of interest in themselves; the interest is normally located in the total score or mean of sets of items grouped on the basis of factor analysis or Cronbach alpha reliability,i.e. we know all the items are measuring the same thing

ATTITUDE SCALES
An attitude scale usually uses sets of statements or words relating to an attitude item. They are usually concerned with measuring the degree of positive or negative feeling (evaluation), that is degree of favourability, towards the person, object or event. The best-known rating scale techniques are described below.

TYPES OF ATTITUDE SCALE Differential Scales (Thurstone Type) The Likert Scale

The Semantic Differential (Osgood)

Kelly's Repertory Grid Technique

DIFFERENTIAL SCALES (THURSTONE TYPE)

Initial selection of a large number of evaluative-tinged statements about a particular object or topic Judges assess the degree to which each statement expresses a positive or negative attitude towards the object A calculation is made of the median score for each item using scale values Scale values indicate the degree to which it represents a favourable or unfavourable attitude Selection of items made on basis of covering scale value range with items on which there is small range of judgement variation

DIFFERENTIAL SCALES (THURSTONE TYPE)

Scale Value Statement 0.5 I believe Savemor provides the best value of any supermarket chain in the country 2.4 I believe Savemor has the consumers needs at heart 5.2 I believe Savemor is as good as any other supermarket. 8.7 I believe Savemor sacrifices quality for cheapness. 10.3 I believe Savemor should be boycotted because of its policy towards unionization.

THE LIKERT SCALE

SA 1* Trade unions hold back progress. 2 I regard my union subscription as a good investment. 3 Every employee should be compelled by law to join their union. 1 1 2 2 A ? 3 3 D 4 4 SD 5 5

Subjects are asked to what extent they agree or disagree with each statement Items are placed in the scale at random and may be positive or negative towards the topic * Reverse scoring on this item - all items marked favourably towards trade unions should be scored in the same direction. Items worded in a reverse direction are placed at random to stop people filling in the scale carelessly by going down in one column.

ADVANTAGE OF LIKERT METHOD

1. Greater ease of preparation than the Thurstone technique. 2. The method is based entirely on empirical data regarding subject's responses rather than subjective opinions of judges. 3. This method produces more homogeneous scales and increases the probability that a unitary attitude is being measured, increasing validity (construct and concurrent) and reliability. 4. As a result most attitude researchers have relied on easier to construct Likert scaling procedure to measure attitudes.

DISADVANTAGE OF LIKERT SCALES

The Likert-type scale is only an ordinal scale, i.e. it makes possible the ranking of individuals in terms of the favourableness of their attitude toward a given object, but it does not provide a basis for saying how much more favourable one is than another. Whether this constitutes a disadvantage of the Likert scale in comparison with the Thurstone scale depends on one's judgement of whether Thurstone scales really meet the criteria for interval scales! Most attitude investigators do assume Likert scales provide interval data

The total score of an individual has little clear meaning, since many patterns of response to the various items may produce the same score. Thurstone-type scales are also subject to this criticism, but it applies even more strongly to the Likert scales, since they provide a greater number of response possibilities and combinations.
The midpoint suffers from problems of definition. Should we name it dont know or no opinion or neutral etc. All these have slightly different meanings.

THE SEMANTIC DIFFERENTIAL

The Semantic Differential requires a list of bipolar scales with usually seven rating points lying between each end of the scale. They are bipolar scales since each end is denoted by the antonym of the other end. Thus it is common to use adjectives like happysad to characterise the opposite poles. Descriptive phrases too such as staff are courteous - staff are not courteous are used

THE SEMANTIC DIFFERENTIAL

Concept to be Rated e.g. Supervisor A
+3 Good Modern Reliable Responsible Uninterested in employees welfare X X X +2 X +1 0 -1 -2 -3 Bad Old fashioned Unreliable Irresponsible Interested in employees welfare

Bi-polar adjective or adjective phrases are chosen as items on the basis of relevance to the concept being rated

COMPARISON OF TWO BRANDS

Brand A versus Brand B (or ideal Brand A)

High price

2 2 2

3 3 3

4 4 4

5 5 5

6 6 6

7 7 7

Low price Low calories Low fat content

High calories 1 High fat content 1

Highly sweet 1 etc Key:

Unsweetened

Rating of Brand A Rating of Brand B (or ideal Brand A)

COMPARISON OF TWO BRANDS

Brand A Brand B (or ideal)

Price Calories Fat Sweetness Total

2 6 5 3 16

5 7 7 5 24

SEMANTIC DIFFERENTIAL PROFILE

ORGANISATION A

+3 Good Modern Healthy Energetic Responsible Important

+2

+1

-1

-2

-3 Bad Oldfashioned Unhealthy Lethargic Irresponsible Unimportant

KELLY'S REPERTORY GRID TECHNIQUE

Devised as a means of mapping an individual's personal constructs a way in which two things are alike and in the same way different from a third Respondents consider three objects, persons, etc., to determine in which way two are alike( marked A) but also different from a third (marked D)

KELLY'S REPERTORY GRID TECHNIQUE

EXAMPLE: Constructs

Repertory Grid for Brands of Beer Brand B Brand C Brand D Brand E

Brand A

Strong Man's drink Reasonably priced Real ale Good taste Artificial taste Good colour

A A A A A

A
A D A A

D A
A A D A

D D D A D

THE RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY OF ATTITUDE SCALES

The reliability of attitude scales is usually assessed via the test-retest method Internal reliability is also sought. Acceptable levels of Cronbach alpha for attitudes scales is 0.7 and above Alpha coefficient range <0.6 .6 to<.7 .7 to<.8 .8 to <.9 .9 Strength of association Poor Barely acceptable Good Very good Excellent

VALIDITY
The validity of attitude scales is often checked by concurrent validity using known criterion groups Predictive validity is also possible by selecting some criterion in the future such as product purchasing behaviour Construct validity is measured by correlating with other known measures of the same construct Content validity is usually easily detectable by inspection of item content

RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY

These important concepts relate to any measure/instrument 1. Validity of a measure: The degree to which a measure actually measures what we think it measures.

2. Reliability of a measure: The consistency of a measure over time or under similar situations. In social, or business research we cannot expect any measure to be perfectly valid or perfectly reliable. The best we can do is to design our measures to be as valid and reliable as they can be and where feasible run some statistical tests to evaluate their levels of reliability and validity. .

DETERMINING RELIABILITY
1. Test-retest reliability. The degree to which the measure returns the same value from the same respondents on a second occasion. Temporal reliability or stability over time 2. Parallel-form reliability. When two equivalent (but different) forms of a measure are developed (e.g. two equivalent forms of a single personality scale are developed), it is the degree to which the same value is returned from the same respondents for the two different equivalent forms.

DETERMINING RELIABILITY
3. Split-Half or Inter-Item Method A measure of reliability reflecting the degree to which one half of the items is the same as that for the other half of the items (like a test-retest, but can be performed on a single occasion). Problem how do we determine which items should be in each half? Often worked on the odd-even items on a scale/test.

4. Internal Consistency Method (Cronbachs Alpha) A measure of reliability that is equivalent to the mathematical average of all possible split half combinations.

CRONBACH ALPHA INTERNAL RELIABILITY ANALYSIS

Select Analyze, choose Scale and click on Reliability Analysis to open the Reliability Analysis dialogue box. Transfer all the scale or subtest items to the Items box. Ensure Alpha is chosen in the Model box Click on Statistics to open the Reliability Analysis Statistics dialogue box. In the Descriptives for area, select Item, Scale and Scale if item deleted. In the Inter-item area choose Correlations Select Continue then OK to produce the output

Cronbach Alpha Analysis Printout

Item-total Statistics Scale Mean if Item Deleted Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Q7 Q8 Q9 Q10 34.1939 34.2755 34.2653 34.1531 34.3878 34.2347 34.2245 34.1837 34.1735 35.5612 Scale Variance if Item Deleted 32.3228 33.1914 31.4959 32.6258 32.1368 32.1196 31.9903 31.7391 31.0727 40.7436 Corrected ItemTotal Correlation .6455 .5686 .7414 .6756 .7492 .7459 .6860 .7225 .7082 -.1369 Alpha if Item Deleted .8462 .8525 .8383 .8445 .8392 .8393 .8429 .8400 .8402 .9175

This item stands out

This will be the alpha if we leave this item out

Reliability Coefficients N of Cases = Alpha = .8647 98.0 N of Items = 10

CRONBACH ALPHA INTERNAL RELIABILITY ANALYSIS

The two columns to focus on are the last two. The Corrected Item-Total Correlation reveals those items that have low correlations with the test or scale as a whole. Here item 10 stands out as the correlation is not only lower than the rest but it is also negative. The last column shows the overall scale alpha or internal reliability if that item is removed. If item 10 is removed the overall scale alpha rises to .9175, much higher than the current alpha and indicative of a scale with very high internal consistency, i.e. all items measuring the same concept. The overall alpha is .8647, printed below the bottom subtable. This is quite acceptable but by eliminating item 10 we do have the option of an even higher value.

GENERAL CRITICISMS OF ATTITUDE SCALES

Attitude scales can be easily faked self report measures are limited by what a subject is willing to reveal about themselves and depends on such factors as willingness to cooperate, social expectancy, feelings of personal adequacy, feelings of freedom from threat, dishonesty, carelessness, ulterior motivation, interpretation of verbal stimuli.

GENERAL CRITICISMS OF ATTITUDE SCALES

Response sets such as acquiescence (the tendency to agree with items irrespective of their content) and social desirability (the tendency to agree to statements which social consensus would support) fog the data derived from attitude scales. The best way of eliminating acquiescence and social desirability is to order randomly positive and negative items to prevent a subject ticking madly away down the same column.