MEASUREMENT & SCALING

MEASUREMENT
In 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 of Measurement/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.

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 doesnt 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 Hostellers Total

800 400 1000

200 150 350

1000 550 1550

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Ordinal Scale
This scale places events in order Eg: Rank orders represent ordinal scales a students 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

Ordinal Scale
Example 1: Rank Households according to their Annual Income.

Household
Income

A
6000

B
10000

C
4800

D
12000

E
11000

If the household with the highest income is to be given No.1 and so on then the following order will emerge:Household A B C D E Order of Household on the basis of Income D E B A C

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 used
I 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 Scale
It 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 Scale
Ration 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 wish to measure it can also be thought of as Utility validity is the extent to which differences found with a measuring instrument reflect true differences among those being tested. Differences between individuals scores can be taken as representing true 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 havent measured purchase intention; we have measured attitude 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 Validity
Contents of the scale correspond to the content of the attitude system and that they are comprehensive enough to cover the full range 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 Validity
In 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 future performance ,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 score on the other variable. Ex: Social status of respondents on the basis of attitude of his savings. Practicality: It should be practical, economical, convenient and results should be interpretable. Economy: There should be balance between ideal research and budget. Where data are not freely available economic factors become dominant. So choice of data collection method should take into a/c the economic factors.
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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
The Respondent

The Instrument

Sources of Errors
The Measurer

The Situation

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The Respondents
Different opinion of the respondent on a given issue It 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 conducts interview 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 in numerous waysToo 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.
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Attitude

Attitude???
An enduring disposition(nature , temperament) to consistently 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 purchase decisions 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 mans 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 to

evaluate 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 is doing in the field of marketing This includes the respondents 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 Attitude Scale..

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..
First ,One should assemble a set of items or statement related to the subject of enquiry. From this pool of item a final choice of item is to be made for inclusion in the scale It is necessary to exercise sufficient care so that complex, imprecise, vague or ambiguous items can be avoided Statement should be written in a simple language so that respondent easily understand them Having collected the set of items or statement ,the next task is to choose the item for inclusion in the final scale. By a process of elimination, unsuitable items should be discarded, as a result of which the items left in the pool will 39 form the final scale.

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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