Rm05 Scaling

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MEASUREMENT &SCALING



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MEASUREMENTIn our daily life we use measurement to describe a specific

feature of a given product or service.

Example: Movie : We may either like it or dislike it.

In Marketing Decision Making Measurement has a crucial Role.

Example: Management wants to know what is the response in the

market for its recently introduced ball-pen.

Response should be in terms of sales or, if firm is not able to

reach its break-even then he has to find out the reasons for

poor sales performance.

Management-Researcher-Collect data-Use Scales under his

process of Investigation.



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Definition ofMeasurement/Scale

Measurement/Scale may be defined as Assignment of

Numbers to characteristics of object or event according

to the rules.

We do not measure the buyer of product but we

measure the characteristics of a buyer or a product.

Buyers :preference usage rate, Income, Attitude can be

measured.

Product: Size, Colour, suitability for particular purpose.



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TYPES OF SCALES

Nominal Scale

Ordinal Scale

Interval Scale

Ratio Scale.



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NOMINAL SCALE• It is simply a system of assigning number symbols to events in order

to label them

• Example: Assigning numbers to football players in order to identify

them – just for convenience, The numbers may be assigned to

students in a class or patients in the hospital.

• We may use Nominal scale by counting students with certain

characteristics or attribute such as those who reside in the university

hostel and other.

• We split a set into subsets which are mutually exclusive and

collectively-exhaustive.

• The only operation involved in this scale is the counting of numbers

in each group.



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NOMINAL SCALE… It is simplest method and least powerful.

The scale doesn’t show any order or distance relationship nor does it

have any arithmetical origin.

It is used for preliminary and exploratory work, where it is sufficient to

know broad dimension of a certain phenomenon.

Number of Students Undergraduates Post Graduates Total

Day Scholars 800 200 1000 Hostellers 400 150 550 Total 1000 350 1550



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Ordinal Scale

This scale places events in order –

Eg: Rank orders represent ordinal scales – a student’s

rank in his graduation class

These scales have no absolute values – all that we can

say is that one person is higher or lower in rank on the

scale



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Ordinal Scale…

• Example 1: Rank Households according to their Annual Income.

Household A B C D E

Income 6000 10000 4800 12000 11000

If the household with the highest income is to be given No.1 and so onthen the following order will emerge:-

Household Order of Household on the basis of Income

A D

B E

C B

D A

E C



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Ordinal Scale… It mere indicates ordering and does not indicate the differences in

annual income among the five households.

Example 2: Likes and Dislikes or acceptability of Softdrink on the

basis of attributes such as colour,flavor etc.

Five point scales can be usedI strongly like it: +2

I like it somewhat:+1

I am indifferent: 0

I dislike it somewhat:-1

I strongly dislike it:-2

One can then combine the individual rankings and get a collective

ranking of the group.



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Interval ScaleIt has the power of nominal and ordinal scale plus one additional

strength, the concept of equality of intervals – eg. The interval

between 1 and 2 equals the difference between 2 and 3.

Example:The Fahrenheit & Centigrade scale & Mean is the

appropriate measure of central tendency

Example: One can say on the basis of this scale, that a

temperature of 100 degrees is 20 degree warmer than 80

degrees and 20 degrees cooler than 120 degrees.

Temperature on scale is a multiple of each other thus differences

can be found out.

Lead prompt completion of measurement and more convenient.



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Ratio ScaleRation Scale possess the power of the preceding three scales as also

the concept of absolute zero or origin.Measurement of physical dimensions like height, weight, distance

and area- geometric mean or harmonic mean are the measures of

central tendency

Equal ratio on the ratio scale indicates the equal ratio among the

elements being measured.

Example: 9lbs and 45lbs are in the ratio of 1:5.

One can change over from one unit to another by using conversion

factor.

Thus facility of conversion from one unit of measurement to another

is available in the case of ratio scale alone.



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Criteria for a Good Scale

Reliability and Validity

Reliability

Test-Retest Reliability

The Alternate Forms reliability

Split-Half Reliability



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Test-Retest Reliability

• Repeated measurement of the same respondent or group

using the same scaling technique under similar condition

• Administering a test at two points of time to the same person

or a group of persons

• The scores of two tests would be correlated

• If the correlation is low, then reliability too is less

• Reliability is a necessary contribution to validity but it is not

sufficient condition for validity_Ex: Weigh M/c.



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Alternative forms reliability

Same respondents given set of two forms, The forms

should be equivalent but not identical.

The results obtained on the basis of these forms are

compared to ascertain whether there is considerable

difference between two scores.

Time consuming in comparison

Expensive



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Split-Half Reliability

Administering the measurement instrument only once to test

the internal consistency

It can be used in case of multi-item instrument

It involves splitting of a multi-item measurement instruments

into two equivalent groups,the item responses of the two

groups then correlated to estimate reliability.

A high degree of correlation indicates that there is similarity

or homogeneity among the items.



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Validity

Are we measuring what we set out to measure?

It refers to the extent to which a test measures what we actually wishto measure – it can also be thought of as Utility – validity is theextent to which differences found with a measuring instrumentreflect true differences among those being tested.

Differences between individuals’ scores can be taken as representingtrue differences in the characteristics under study.

Example:

We want to know if people will buy our new brand of

champagne. We ask people how they like it.

We haven’t measured purchase intention; we have measuredattitude toward the product!

OUR MEASURE IS NOT VALID



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Approaches of Validity

Content Validity

Construct Validity

Predictive Validity

Con current Validity



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Content ValidityContents of the scale correspond to the content of the attitude

system and that they are comprehensive enough to cover the fullrange of the attitude.

The researcher should define the problem clearly

Identify the items to be measured

Evolve a suitable scale for the purpose

Criticism: it can be criticized on the ground whether or not given

scale contains the content validity will depend on the judgment of

the researcher and this likely to vary from individual to individual. To

avoid this it may be preferable to approach a group of

knowledgeable person, rather than leaving it to one person alone.



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Construct ValidityIn order to apply construct validity researcher postulates the nature

and extent of association between the attitude and other specified

variables. He then examines whether these relationship exist.

If not, there could be two situation either scale might be invalid as it

does not satisfactorily measure what it set out to measure and

second his theory might be deficient in some way and it may be

difficult for him to identify it.

Example: Individual current status in society

Dependent on education, car own, money etc, to consider Elite:

proper association of these variables.

The existence of high degree of correlation indicates test of validity.



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Predictive Validity

It indicates how best the researcher can guess the futureperformance ,from his knowledge of the attitude score.

Example: Opinion questionnaire forms the basis for correctly

forecasting the demand for a product has predictive validity

Procedure of predictive validity is first measure the attitude and then

predicts future behavior on the basis of measurement.

Same obtained scores compared with the earlier predictive scores.

High correlation have high predictive validity.



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Concurrent Validity

An attitude scale on one variable can be used to estimate the scoreon the other variable.

Ex: Social status of respondents on the basis of attitude of hissavings.

Practicality:It should be practical, economical, convenient and results should beinterpretable.

Economy:

There should be balance between ideal research and budget. Wheredata are not freely available economic factors become dominant. Sochoice of data collection method should take into a/c the economicfactors.



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cntd

Convenience:

It is always advised that measurement should not be inconvenient to

administer. There should be some set of clear instruction

regd.questionaire or measurement scale to elicit better response.

The more complex the construct great need for very clear and

complete instructions.

Interpretability:

It is one of the important aspect that the person other than the test

designer have to interpret the results .

There must be important and relevant information to facilitate

interpretation in proper perspective to understand the actual fact.



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Sources of Error

Sourcesof Errors

TheRespondent

TheSituation

TheMeasurer

TheInstrument



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The Respondents

Different opinion of the respondent on a given issueIt Arises on a/c of status of respondent,level of edu.,social

class,nature of job etc.

Some may be reluctant to express their negative opinion on some

issue

Some other may express deliberately different from others

Some respondents responds without having knowledge on the topic

of issue,answer in vague manner.



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The Situation

Situation of interview influences the measurement

Ex: Investigator approaches a respondent who is

discussing some matter with his friends.

He may refuse to cooperate with investigator or he may

give answer in casual manner to cut short the interview.

When the respondents do not want their identitity

disclosed they may not express actual feelings.



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The Measurer

The measurer is no one but the interviewer.He conductsinterview or questionnaire.

Measurement error may crop on a/c of method used by

interviewer

The carelessness of interviewer during recording of

responses

He may change wordings and he may manipulate the

responses or misinterprets the meaning of responses.



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The Instrument

Defective instrument of data collection cause distortion innumerous ways-

Too lengthy questionnaire

Element of ambiguity in questions

language used in questions is suggestive of a

particular response.

Layout of instruments ,the extent of space available

for response, the type of printing quality and paper

quality may be inadequate or of poor quality.



Attitude



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Attitude???

• An enduring disposition(nature , temperament) toconsistently respond in a given matter

• The term attitude refers to the predisposition/mental state

of individuals/users towards a product/idea/attributes of an

object.

• It also implies the mental readiness to act in a particular

manner and influences the individuals' behavior towards

the object/group/organization/person under consideration.

• In attitude measurement, the researcher is primarily

interested in measuring the "state of mind" of the

respondent (s).



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Attitudes directly affect purchasedecisions and these in turn,

directly affect attitudes.

Attitude Action/

Behavior



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Continued…. • The salient factors that go into the building of the overall

attitude of the individual towards the object are

• a) his/her beliefs about the attributes possessed by the

object,

• b) his/her preference or otherwise for those attributes, and

• c) the relative importance of each attribute to the

individual's decision making process.

• It may include factors such as awareness, attitudes and

decision processes.

• The dictionary meaning of Attitude is “settled behavior ,as

indicating opinion”



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What Authors says…. • Thurstone ,Louis in his article “Attitude can be Measured” in

American Journal of Sociology,Vol.33 in 1928 defines

attitude as “the sum of total of man’s inclinations and

feelings ,prejudices or bias, preconceived notion, ideas,

fear, threats and convictions about any specific topic”

• Katz in his article “The functional approaches to the study

of Attitudes” in public opinion quarterly in 1960 has defined

attitude as “Attitude is predisposition of the individual toevaluate some symbol or object or aspect of his world in a

favorable manner.”



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Issues in Attitude Measurement

• Attitude measurement relates to the process of measuring

an individual's attitude towards an object. When we go for

measurement of attitudes or any other parameter, one has

to clearly sort out the following :

– • "what" has to be measured ?

– • "who" is to be measured ?

– • the accuracy desired in the measurement

– • the costs permissible

– • the choices available in the measurement/data

collection techniques.



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Components of Attitude

•Affective

•Cognitive

•Behavioral



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Affective

• The feelings or emotions toward an object

• It indicates the respondents’ liking and

preferences of an object or phenomenon. When

the respondent states “ I like this product” “

Advertising for product X is not good” he is

showing affective component.

• It is quite important in knowing the feelings and

preferences of the respondent towards a certain

product or service.



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Cognitive• It indicates that the respondent is aware of and what knows

about a given object or phenomenon.

• This is related to knowledge ,information having with

respondent

• In marketing research we wants to know whether the

respondent has some idea of product features, advertising

campaigns ,pricing of the product as also its availability

,competitive product and such other aspects.

• “ I have no idea about the teaching of this college”

• Knowledge and beliefs



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Behavioral

• It refers to what the respondent has done or isdoing in the field of marketing

• This includes the respondent’s purchase of a

product or service, the pattern of purchase, the

quantum of product purchased as also the main

characteristics of the buyer.

– Predisposition(tendency, inclination) to action

– Intentions

– Behavioral expectations



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General Procedure in AttitudeScale..

• There are numerous methods available for measurement of

attitude.

• Self report-where as person is asked directly how he feels

about an object

• Observation of behavior

• Indirect techniques such as –Word association test,

Sentence completion test, Story telling, performance of

objective task and physiological reactions.





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Continued… • While discarding the unsuitable item ,it should be ensured

that the items retained are such as comprehensively cover

the attitude dimension.

• For this purpose sometimes exploratory study is

undertaken in which some persons are asked to respond to

all the items of the pool. Another approach ,as is used in

thurstone scales, is to ask a group of judges to assess the

suitability of items for the final scale.• Finally the scale once formed should be tested in regard to

its reliability and validity .If the scale satisfies these criteria

,it can be used in survey.



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