SessionV

Measurement&Scaling

BusinessResearchMethods

Measurement AnIntroduction
TwoedgesofaRuler Alternatescalesofmeasurement
First critical questions:
What
Wh is
i to be
b measured?
d?
Concept (Construct) A generalized idea about a class of
object,
bj t attributes,
tt ib t occurrences or processes.
Operational Definition A definition that gives meaning to a
concept by specifying the activities/operations necessary in
order to measure it.

BusinessResearchMethods

Construct,Conceptual&OperationalDefn.
Concept
J b Ch ll
JobChallenge
ConceptualDefinition
This dimension reflects a workerssdesireforstimulationand
Thisdimensionreflectsaworker
desire for stimulation and
challengeinhis/herjobandabilitytoexerciseskillsinhis/herjob.
Rulesof
Measurement

OperationalDefinition
Pleasetellmehowtrueeachstatementisaboutyourjob?Isit
verytrue,somewhattrue,notverytrue ornottrueatall
1.Theworkisinteresting.
2.Ihaveanopportunitytodevelopmyownspecialskills.
3.IamgivenachancetodothethingsIdobest.

BusinessResearchMethods

Data
Next critical questions: How do we measure it?
Data
Scale
What is data?

Data=Pattern+Noise

Data Set & Data Point

3 Perspectives of Data
Linguistics
Philosophical
Statistical
BusinessResearchMethods

Scales
Data concerns the levels of attributes of an entity that you
pe ce e
perceive.
Levels are measured using SCALES.
Measurement: The assignment of nos. or other symbols to
characteristics of objects according to certain pre
prespecified
specified
rules.
g The ggeneration of continuum upon
p
which measured
Scaling:
objects are located.

BusinessResearchMethods

PrimaryScalesofMeasurement
What do these mean?
Nominal?
Ordinal?
Interval?
Ratio?

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PrimaryScalesofMeasurement
In a race???
Nominal?
Ordinal?
Interval?
Ratio?

One more group exercise!

BusinessResearchMethods

PrimaryScalesofMeasurement
SCALE

NOMINAL

ORDINAL

INTERVAL

RATIO

BASIC
CHARACTERISTICS

COMMON
EXAMPLES
(Anytwo
examples)
l )

Dataisusedto
identifyanentity
&classifyobjects

Numberinga
football
player

Nos.indicaterelative
positionsofthe
objectsbutnotthe
magnitudeof
diff
differencesb/wthem
b/ th

PERMISSIBLESTATISTICS
Graphical

Descriptive

%&mode
Barcharts&
only!
Whynotmean
piecharts
or median?
ormedian?

Rankinanexam, Barcharts&
piecharts
Marketposition

Inferential

Chisquare,
binomialtest

Median&
modemake
sense,
percentile

Rankorder
correlation

Notonlygivesthe
orderbutalsogives
thedistance
calibrations and the
calibrationsandthe
distanceisconstant

Thereisa0butnot
anabsolute0.Marks
inanexam,
Chronological time
Chronologicaltime
(Clock)

Histograms,
Frequency
Polygons,
g
and
Ogives
spikecharts

Mean,SD,
Range

ANOVA,
Regression,
ttests

IntervalScale+
Ab l t Z
AbsoluteZero

Elapsedtime,
distance,
volume,
l
population

Histograms,
Frequency
Polygons,
Ogives and
spikecharts

Geometric
Mean,
Harmonic
Harmonic
Mean

Coefficientof
Variation

BusinessResearchMethods

Data
Data can be
Qualitative
Q lit ti / Quantitative
Q
tit ti
Discreet / Continuous
Discreet Specified data points
Nominal & Ordinal Scales
Continuous Between two points there are uncountable
infinite points
Interval & Ratio Scales
BusinessResearchMethods

Summary
WhattoMeasure Construct&OperationalDefinition
Howdowemeasureit?
H d
it?
DataandScale
PrimaryScalesofMeasurement
i
S l
f
DiscreetandContinuousdata

BusinessResearchMethods

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