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RESEARCH CHAPTER 12
MEASUREMENT: SCALING,
RELIABILITY, VALIDITY
Measurement
The assignment of numbers or other symbols to characteristics (or attributes)
of objects according to a prespecified set of rules
Note that every responden has to fit into one of the above 11 categories and that
the scale allows computation of the numbers and precentages of respondents that
fit into them.
Ordinal Scale
Not only categorizes the variables in such a way as to denote
differences among the various categories, but also rank-orders the
categories in some meaningful way
With any variable for which the categories are to be orders
according to some preference, the ordinal scale would be used
Goes beyond differentiating the categories into providing
information on how respondents distinguish them by rank-ordering
them
Does not give any indication of the magnitude of the differences
among the ranks
EXAMPLE
Rank the following 5 characteristics in a job in terms of how important the year for
you. You should rank the most important item as 1, the next in importance as 2, and
so on, until you have ranked each of them1,2,3,4 or 5.
Neither
Stongly agree or Strongly
Disagree Disagree Disagree Agree Agree
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
The following opportunities offered by the job are very important to me :
a. Interact with others 1 2 3 4 5
a. Use a number of different skills 1 2 3 4 5
a. Complete a whole task from
1 2 3 4 5
beginning to end
a. Serve others 1 2 3 4 5
a. Work independently 1 2 3 4 5
Now that we have looked at the four types of scales, let us see, through the following
examples, when and how they should be used.
EXAMPLE
Use the nominal scale
The nominal scale is always used for obtaining personal data such as gender or department
which one works, where grouping or individuas or objects is useful, as shown below:
__Apple __Hawlett-Packard
__Compact __IBM
__Comp USA __Packard Bell
__Dell Computer __Sony
__Gateway __Toshiba
__Other (specify)
2. Rank the cities listed below in the order that you consider suitable for opening a new plant.
The city considered the most suitable should be ranked 1, the next 2 and so on.
__Cincinnati __Milwaukee
__Detroit __Pittsburgh
__Des Moines __St Louis
__Houston
EXAMPLE
Use the interval scale
The interval scale is used when responses to various items that measure a variable
can be tapped on a five-point scale, which can there after be summed across the
items. See the following examples of a Likelert scale.
Using the scale below, please indicated your response to each of theitems that
follow, by circling the number that best describes your feeling.
Neither
Stongly agree or Strongly
Disagree Disagree Disagree Agree Agree
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
The responses to the questions could range from 0 to any reasonable figure.
Review of the scales
i. The nominal scale highlights the difference by classifiying objects
or persons into groups and provide the last amount of
information on the variable.
ii. The ordinal scale provides some additional information by rank-
ordering the categories of the nominal scale.
iii. The interval scale not only ranks, but also provides us with
information on the magnitude of the differences in the variable.
iv. The ratio scale indicates not only the magnitude of the
differences but also their proportion.