Session 2

MEASUREMENT THEORY 2

Bahrul Hayat
Faculty of Psychology
State Islamic University Jakarta
Fundamental Characteristics of Number

Distinctivenes
Order
s

Quantity
Absolute
(equal
zero
interval)
Fundamental Characteristics of Number

Sameness:
to label, Similar to each other
to categorize, Differentness:
to identify Different from other
category

Rules:
a. establish category,
b. mutually exclusive,
c. exhaustive
Fundamental Characteristics of Number

• Relative amount of attribute the people posses

• Relative position/ranking
Order
• People are order according to the amount of
the same attribute
• Can use the property: > # = <
Fundamental Characteristics of Number
• Equal interval: equivalent differences between
numbers
• Represent the same amount of difference in
the attributes (quantitative difference)
Quantity • The size of the unit of measurement is constant
and additive, 40+2=42
• Units of measurement are standardized: scalar
or metric
• Additivity: a unit increase at one point must be
the same as a unit increase at any other point.
Fundamental Characteristics of Number
• Zero represents an absence of the attribute
• Has no existence, has no difference
• arithmetic operations of
Absolute • addition, subtraction, multiplication, and
zero division, and the commutative, associative, and
distributive laws for these operations can be
derived.
80 is 2 x 40
80 : 2 = 40
 Absolute and Arbitrary Zero
• When measuring temperature in Celsius, the 0 does not mean that
zero degrees Celsius there is no temperature. Zero degree is an
arbitrary point. Even though the zero is arbitrary, the measures of
central tendency can be used. For example, range and standard
deviation can be measured efficiently.

• Similarly, zero score in a mathematics achievement test does not

mean that an examinee has no mathematic ability at all.

• Zero on an IQ test? No intelligence?

 Level of Measurement
(Stevens,1946)

Characteristics Nominal Ordinal Interval Ratio

Distinctiveness v v v v

Order v v v

Quantity (equal v v
interval)

Absolute zero v
 Nominal Scale
• Nominal scales are those in which numbers are used purely as labels for
the elements in the data system and do not have the properties of
meaningful order, equal distances between units, or a fixed origin.
• Social scientists sometimes use nominal scales in coding responses to
demographic questionnaire items. For example, an item on the
respondent’s gender may be assigned a code of 0 for male and 1 for
female, even though no quantitative distinction between the two genders
is implied.
• Any other set of numbers could be substituted for the original set of
numbers as long as the one-to-one correspondence between members of
the sets is maintained. This is called isomorphic transformation.
 Ordinal Scale
• Ordinal scale values have the same property of order as values in the
real-number system, but they lack the properties of equal distances
between units and a fixed origin.
• Psychologist in a beauty pageant rank 10 contestants from 1 to 10,
using their own personal standards, these values constitute an ordinal
scale.
• Values on an ordinal scale may be converted to other values by using
any rule that preserves the original information about the rank order
among the data elements. Such a transformation is called a
monotonic transformation.
 Interval Scale
• Numbers on an interval scale also indicate rank order, but in addition,
distances between the numbers have meaning with respect to the property
being measured. If two scores at the low end of the continuum are one unit
apart and two scores at the high end are also one unit apart, the difference
between the low scores represents the same amount of the property as the
difference between the high scores.
• Because the relative sizes of the distances between values assigned to
observations contain meaningful information, transformations permissible
to interval scale values are restricted. If x is a variable representing values on
the original scale, and y represents the values on the transformed scale, the
only transformation that will retain the information contained in the original
set of values is of the form in which a and b are constants:
y = ax + b.
 Ratio Scale
• Manymeasures of physical objects are made on ratio scales (e.g. ,
length m centimeters; weight in kilograms; or age in days, months , or
years)
• The ratio scale is so named because once the location of absolute
zero is known, nonzero measurements on this scale may be expressed
as ratios of one another.
• In ratio scale there is always an absolute zero that is meaningful.
Psychological
measurement
Level of Measurement and Descriptive
Statistics
The end