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There are many ways to present a respondent with a continuum of numbered categories
that represent the range of possible attitude judgments. The figure A shows various types
of scales which are used in research.

Single-item scale

As the name itself suggests, single-item scales are those that have only one item to
measure a conduct. Under the single-item scale, the itemized-category scale is most
widely used by researchers.

Itemised-category scales

These are four categories from which respondents can choose to indicate their overall
level of satisfaction with their present banking facilities.

· Very satisfied · Quite satisfied · Somewhat satisfied

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Another version of the preceding scale would label the categories ³excellent´ ³very
good´ ³good´ ³fair´ and ³poor´ thereby eliminating the implicit comparison. The
problem with a comparative scale is that the reference point is unclear and different
respondents may use different reference points or standards.
0
 Comparison of public school in an area with government school in terms
of quality of education.

u 
  
 

Œrdinal scales represent numbers, letters or other symbols used to rank items. It can be
classified not only on the basis of whether they share some characteristic with another
item but also whether they have more or less of this characteristic than some other object.
The ranking of certain attributes/benefits as deemed important by the respondent is
obtained through this scale.

º Rank the following attributes on a scale of 1-5 according to their importance to
a washing machine.

A. Company image B. Functions C. Price D. Comfort E. Design

c

  

hen the number of objects or characteristics that are to be rated or ranked is very large,
it becomes rather tedious for the respondents to rank order or do a pair wise comparison.

If the respondent is forced to do a rank ordering or a pair wise comparison, a number of

problems and biases creep into the study. In Q-sort scaling the respondents are asked to
sort the various characteristics or objects that are being categorised into various groups,
such that the distribution of the numbers of objects or characteristics in each group
follows a normal distribution.

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Constant-Sum scales require respondents to allocate a fixed number of rating points

among several objects, to reflect the relative preference of each object. It is widely used
to measure the relative importance of attributes, as in the following example:

Please divide 100 among the following characteristics so the division reflects the
importance of each characteristic to you in the selection of a management institute.

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Ratio scales consist of numbers that rank items such that numerically equal distances on
the scale represent equal distances in the property being measured and have a meaningful
zero. All descriptive measures and inferential techniques are applicable to ratio scaled
data. Table B




   
 
 

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The judgements are against other similar objects. The respondents directly compare two
or more oMethods of ranking scales are as follows:

Method of paired comparison

hen there are more stimuli to judge, the number of judgements required in paired
comparison is given as:

N = number of judgments

n = number of stimuli or objects to be judged objects and may choose among them.

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They are developed on an adhoc basis and are designed largely through
the researcher¶s own subjective selection of items. The researcher first collects a few
statements or items which he believes are unambiguous and appropriate to a given topic,
then a few of them are selected for inclusion in the measuring instrument. People are then
asked to check the list for the statement on which they agree.

Example of an arbitrary scale

Keeping in mind the conditions of Delhi roads owning a luxury, high-cost brand car is:

1. A necessity

2. To satisfy self-esteem

   
 
± Thurstone-type scales

They are developed using consensus scale approach, where the selection of items is made
by a panel of judges who evaluate the items in terms of whether they are relevant to that
topic area and unambiguous in implication.

It is used to measure attitudes towards various issues like war, religion, etc.


 

 
They are developed by utilising the item analysis
approach wherein a particular item is evaluated on the basis of how well it discriminates
between those persons whose total score is high and those whose score is low.

Thus, summated scales consist of a number of statements which express either a

favourable or unfavourable attitude towards a given object to which the respondent is
asked to react. The respondent indicates his agreement or disagreement with each
statement in the instrument. Each response is given a numerical scale/score and these
scores are totaled to measure the respondent¶s attitudes.

— 
Easy to construct and reliable. It also provides more information and data.

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It consists of a series of statements to which a respondent expresses

his agreement or disagreement. These statements form a cumulative series, i.e., they are
related to one another in such a way that an individual who replies favorably to say item
no. 3 also replies favorably to items no. 2 and 1 and so on. The individual¶s score is
worked out by counting the number of points concerning the number of statements he
answers favorably. If one knows the total score one can estimate as to how a respondent
has answered individual statements constituting cumulative scales.

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It assures that only a single dimension of attitude is being measured.

 
 It is a modification of the differential scale. It differs from the semantic

differential scale in that the adjectives or descriptive phrases are tested separately instead
of simultaneously as bipolar pairs. Also, the points on the scale are identified by number
as these are ten scale positions rather than five or seven as in the required manner.

0

   
 It requires the raters to rate an object by comparing it with
reference point. The goal is a ratio-scale representation of attitudes toward the complete
set of objects. An example is presented below:

Please divide 100 points among the following TV brands so as to reflect how much
overall quality you believe each one has:

BPL __________________ points

SAMSUNG __________________ points

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r  
  
   It is a complicated scaling device. But with this we can scale
objects, individuals or both with a minimum of information. MDS can be characterised as
a set of procedures for portraying perceptual or effective dimensions of substantive
interest. It is used when all the variables (metric or non-metric) in a study are to be
analysed simultaneously and all such variables happen to be independent.

    
   It is developed by Charles. E. Œsgood. G.J. Suci and P.H.

Tennenbnum (1957) is an attempt to measure the psychological meaning of an object to
an individual. For instance, the S.D. scale items for analysing candidates for leadership
position may be shown as under.



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!
   "
For the disguised structured scaling method
of data collection, certain projective techniques are used. The popular projective
techniques used are (i) ord Association, (ii) Sentence Completion, (iii) Thematic
Apperception Test (TAT), (iv) Story-telling, (v) Body-building/House-building.

A. ord association

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 A series of situation/words is given to the respondents and they are asked to
fill up the first word/brand which comes to their mind.
It is interesting for the respondent to fill up the various word associations. It is also quick
and easily understood.

º

1. DŒVE: LŒVE

2. hich brand of cooking oil comes to your mind when speaking of a light and
nutritious sunflower oil?

3. ho do you think is most likely to use the Bajaj Sunny?