Business

Research Methods

William G. Zikmund

Chapter 13:
Measurement & Scaling Concepts
 Measurement in Survey Research
Measurement is the process of assigning numbers or
labels to the attributes of objects or persons or states,
or events under study in accordance with specific rules

Measurement is the assignment of

numbers to objects or events
according to rules.
 Measurement in Survey Research
For example consider the people in this
class as subjects and their height as the
attribute.

The attribute height varies between

objects, hence attributes are more
collectively known as variables

• The numbers don’t mean anything until we interpret

them
• Statistics helps us in interpretation.
 Identify Concept / Construct
Measurement begins by identifying a
concept of interest .

A concept is expressed in every-day

terminology. This requires the
researcher to generalize/categorize.

A concept also known as construct

can be a theoretical abstraction that
can’t really be observed (e.g., love,
trust, social class, personality, power).
 Identify Concept / Construct
FOR EXAMPLE: What do sociologists want to measure?
• Concepts or constructs –like
– e.g. social class
– e.g. social capital
– e.g. social attitudes
•But these aforesaid concepts can’t be directly
observed, so how can we measure them?

• We use indicators that represent our concepts and

measure those indicators (variables)
E.g. to measure the concept social class, we use
indicator Income
 Identify Concept / Construct
 ‘objective’ attributes like level of education or training
are not abstract concept.

• We can’t directly observe how educated

someone is. So we use an indicator, e.g.
–Ask someone for their highest educational
qualification (this is the variable under study)
– Or ‘how old were you when you completed
fulltime education?’ (this is the variable under study)
 Concept
Concept which are concrete & easy to measure, such
as:
age, gender and number of children etc.

Concept which are abstract and difficult to measure,

such as:
Brand loyalty, job involvement etc.

For Example: Brand loyalty can be measured using a

number factor such as,
attitude toward brand
 number of different brand purchases etc.
 Concept: Operational Definition
Operational Definition of concept specifies which
observable characteristics will be measured and the
process for assigning a value to the concept.

For example: abstract concept like grievances is difficult

to operationalize.

Whereas, concrete concept like personnel

turnover is less difficult to operationalize.
Concept: Operational Definition
 ATTRIBUTES is a single characteristic or
fundamental feature that is relevant to an
object, person, or issue
people in this class are subjects and their
height is the attribute

 COMPOSITE MEASURE is a composite

measure of several variables to measure a
single concept; a multi-item
instrument/questionnaire
To measure health, you can measure
attributes like weight, Body Mass Index,
Undergone diseases or medications.
 Variables
 When we measure the attributes of an object, we
obtain a value that varies between objects or
subjects of study.

 For example consider the people in this class as

objects and their height as the attribute

 The attribute height varies between objects, hence

attributes are more collectively known as variables
 Variables can be measured on four different scales
Develop a Measurement Scale
SCALE
– A scale is a set of symbols or numbers so
constructed that the symbols or numbers can
be assigned by a rule for the individuals (or
their behaviors or attitudes) to whom the scale
is applied
Types of Measurement Scales

Nominal Scale
Ordinal Scale
Interval Scale
Ratio Scale
 Types of Measurement Scales
a) Nominal or Classificatory Scales
It is a Scale that categorize data into mutually
exclusive and collectively exhaustive categories.
A nominal scale enables the classification of individuals,
objects or responses based on a common/shared property or
characteristic.
Typical Descriptive Statistics used for interpretation: is
Frequency counts, percentages/modes.
Examples of Nominal Scales:
 a) Nominal or Classificatory Scales Examples

Gender Social status

Marital status Days of the week (months)
Geographic location Patrons per hour
Ethnic Group Types of restaurants
Brand choice Religion
Job Type: Executive, Technical, Clerical

Coded as Coded as
b) Ordinal or Ranking Scale
It is a Nominal scale that can order data.
A ordinal scale enables the classification of
individuals, objects or responses based on a
common/shared property or characteristic and it ranks the
subgroups in a certain order.

Attributes / Characteristics can be rank ordered.

For example: for a variable ‘educational attainment’

following attributes/properties are ranked.
1=at least SSC
2=at least HSC
3=undergraduate degree
4=postgraduate degree
b) Ordinal or Ranking Scales
 Someone with a postgrad has reached a higher
educational than someone with only an undergrad.

• But distances between attributes have no meaning; no

arithmetical comparisons or calculations can be applied to
them
Is the difference between SSC and HSC is same as
between undergraduate and postgraduate degrees? No!

• Particular values (numbers) used as codes is arbitrary,

but they must be in the correct order.

Typical Descriptive Statistics for interpretation: is

Median
 b) Ordinal Scale: Example
With ordinal data, it is
fair to say that one
response is greater or less
than another.
E.g. if people were asked
to rate the hotness of 3 chili
peppers, a scale of "hot",
"hotter" and "hottest"
could be used. Values of
"1" for "hot", "2" for The gap between the
"hotter" and "3" for items is unspecified.
"hottest" could be
assigned.
b) Ordinal or Ranking Scales
Example of Ordinal Scale: Please rank the following fax
machines from 1 to 5 with 1 being the most preferred and 5
the least preferred.
_____ Panasonic
_____ Toshiba
_____ Sharp
_____ Savin
_____ Ricoh
 c) Interval Scale
It has all the properties of nominal and ordinal
scales plus equal intervals between consecutive
points to show relative amounts.
It is a preferred measure for complex concepts
or constructs
i.e. gaps between whole numbers on the scale are
equal.
e.g. Fahrenheit and Celsius temperature scales
An interval scale does not have to have a true zero.
e.g. A temperature of "zero" does not mean that there
is no temperature...it is just an arbitrary zero point.
Statistics for interpretation: is frequencies, mode,
median, mean, standard deviation
c) Interval Scales:
 d) Ratio Scale
Similar to interval scales except
that the ratio scale has a true zero
value.
e.g. the time something takes
allows you to compare differences
between numbers.
If a train journey takes 2 hr , then
this is half as long as a journey which
takes 4 hr.
d) Ratio Scales
It incorporates all the properties of nominal, ordinal,
and interval scales
It includes a meaningful zero point so that
magnitudes can be compared arithmetically.
The zero point of a ratio scale is fixed, which means
it has a fixed starting point.

Typical Descriptive Statistics for interpretation: is

Mean/variance plus a few higher order statistics
Example: Age
– It makes sense to say that someone who is 40 years old is
twice as old as someone who is 20 years old
 Examples of Ratio Scale
height, weight, age,
Length
time
Income
7 Market share
6

0
 Use of Measurement Scales
• Nominal
– Used to categorize objects
• Ordinal
– Used to define ordered relationships
• Interval
– Used to rank objects such that the magnitude of the
difference between two objects can be determined
• Ratio
– Same as interval scale but has an absolute zero point
 Nominal

Win Place Show

Ordinal

Interval

1 length 2 lengths

Ratio
40 to 1 long-shot pays $40
 Error

Why do we care?
 Characteristics of Good Measurement Scales
1. Reliability
• The degree to which a measure accurately captures an
individual’s true outcome without error; Accuracy
synonymous with repetitive consistency
2. Validity
• The degree to which a measure faithfully represents the
underlying concept; Fidelity
3. Sensitivity
• The ability to distinguish meaningful differences
between attitudes. The more categories the more
sensitive (but less reliable)
4. Generalizability
• How easy is scale to administer and interpret