SEMANTIC DIFFRENTIAL SCALE

INTRODUCTION:- sementic diffrential scale is most effective and most

widely used technique nowadays
In 1967 osgood, suci and tannebaum introduced this method for the first time
in their book, the measurement of meaning
Although the original purpose of the scale was not necessarily to measure the
assessment of attitude, the procedure was well adopted for attitude
assessment

DEFINITION:-“ semantic diffrential scale is atype of rating scale designated

to measure the connotative meaning of object, ,events, and concepts. These
connotation are used to derive the respondents attitude towards the object,
event and concept”
EXAMPLE:- While the word “heart” is defined as the organ that pumps blood
around the body. Its connovative meaning is love or heartache. The feeling
towards a particular subject.

USAGE OF SEMANTIC DIFFRENTIAL SCALE:-

 Patient satisfaction survey
 Customer satisfaction survey
 Employee survey
 Marketing survey
 Operational research
 Personality measurement
 Clinical psychology

DESIGNING SEMANTIC DIFFRENTIAL SCALE:-

For the preparation of semantic diffrential scale, adjective pairs are
used as depicted in table
 The bipolar adjective pair can be used for a waide variety of subject
 The adjective pairs are selected according to the objective of the survey
 The adjective pairs can be groued into three categories, and each survey
question usually includes a few point from each category. These
category are evaluation, potency and activity
ADJECTIVE PAIRS USED FOR CONSTRUCTION OD SEMANTIC
DIFFRENTIAL SCALE:-

EVALAUTION POTENCY ACTIVITY

Good-bad Hard-soft Active-passive
Kind-cruel Strong-weak Fast- slow
Wise-foolish Heavy-light Hot- cold
Beautiful- ugly Deep-shallow Motivated-aimless
Happy-sad Potent-impotent Moving-still
Sociable-unsociable Large-small excitable
Friendly-unfriendly Simple-complex Alive-dead
Willing- unwilling Difficult-easy Emotional-
unemotional
Honest- dishonest Submissive-assertive Bright-dim

EX OF SEMANTIC DIFFRENTIAL SCALE TO ASSESS THE BELIEF

ABOUT HIV/ AIDS

cure 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 death
No 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 punishment
punishment
Social 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Social
acceptance rejection
Affordable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Expensive
treatment treatment

Normal life 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Miserable

life

Eg of semantic differential scale to assess the belief about HIV/AIDS

ADVANTAGE OF SEMANTIC DIFFRENTIAL SCALE:-
 A convenient method to assess the beliefs, attitude and value In
quantitative form
 Easy to administer
 Provides reasonable valid and relaiable quanititative data

DISADVANTAGE OF SEMANTIC DIFFRENTIAL SCALE:-

 It is difficult to select the relevant concept, which are appropriate for
any given investigation
 It is time consuming to find the appropriate adjective pair
1 BHASKAR NIMA RAJ BHASKARA ELAKKUVANA D
“TEXTBOOK OF NURSING EDUCATION”
PUBLISHED BY MANJUNATH S HEGDE PAGE
NO-233,234
2CLEMENT I “THE TEXTBOOK ON COMMUNICATION
AND EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY” PUBLISHED
BY MANJUNATH S HEGDE SECOND EDITION-2010
PAGE NO-300,301
4 https://en.mwikipedia.org/diffrentialscale
3SHARMA K SURESH “ TEXTBOOK OF NURSING RESEARCH
AND STATISTICS” PUBLISHED BY ELSEVIER
PAGE NO- 312, 313,314
5) SUDHA R TEXTBOOK OF NURSING EDUCATION
PRINCIPLE AND CONCEPT, PUBLISHED BY
JAYPEE BROTHER MEDICAL PUBLISHERS
(P) LTD FIRST EDITION2013 PAGE NO 189,190
,