ATTITUDE MEASUREMENT

VARIOUS WAYS TO MEASURE ATTITUDE

1. Observation - difficult & time consuming

2. Qualitative ( interview and FGD)

– pinpoint important attributes & issues

– provide direction for further research

3. Self report - Most common type of measuring Attitude is the self report method. People are asked to respond to
questions by expressing their personal evaluations. People may respond in terms of how they think others respond or
how they think they ought to respond. The accuracy of the measurement is lowered if a persons public response
differs from his or her private attitude.

• Simplest technique is to place concepts, places , things or people into a “favourable” or “unfavourable”
category.

4. Public opinion Polling: Used either to predict something or to provide information. Predict the outcomes of
elections . Likelihood of buying a product. The degree of public support for implementing new policies

Opinion polling occurs in 4 steps -

a. Selecting a sample of Respondents - Selecting a part of the whole population for study is called Sampling. The sample
should be perfectly represent the population; then the results will accurately represent the results of the entire
population. Random sampling: Each person in the target population has an equal chance of being selected in the
sample.

b. Constructing the Attitude items - Attitude item consists of a question or statement about the object. and a format
for the response . Format is either Fixed- where the response categories of the responses are named or Open
ended- where respondents use their own words. Just like the Multiple choice questions or the Essay type questions

c. Administering items to the sample

d. Tabulating the results

5. Attitude Scales

An attitude scale attempts to obtain a precise measure of the extremity of peoples attitudes.

Accuracy of measurement can be increased by using many items that are all related to the same issue

An Attitude scale inquires about things that are known to be related to the attitude topic.

They involve a person’s beliefs or opinions about the attitude object

Self reporting scales to measure Attitudes

• Likert - degree of agreement with a statement

• Semantic differential - opposite adjectives

• Rank order scale