measurement

Prepared by:

Miss Gracey

Communication Research

MEASUREMENT

•Definition of Measurement

• Levels of Measurement

• Scales and Indexes

• Types of Scales

COVERAGE

• the process of determining dimensions, values or degrees

MEASUREMENT: GENERAL DEFINITION

• the assignment of numerals to objects and events according to rules (Kerlinger, 1973)

• the act or process of assigning numbers to phenomena according to a rule

• logical rule for assigning numbers to observations to represent the quality of a trait of characteristic possessed

MEASUREMENT: IN SOCIAL SCIENCE

•Numeral

– a symbol, such as V, X, C, or 5, 10, 100

MEASUREMENT: CONCEPTS

• Assignment

– the designation of numerals or numbers to certain objects or events

e.g.

1 – people who get most of their news from television, the numeral

2 – those who get most of their news from a newspaper

3 – those who get most of their news from some other source


•Rules

- specify the way that numerals or numbers are to be assigned


•Attitude

- a concept that is frequently measured in communication research

- an enduring, learned predisposition to behave in a consistent way towards a person or given class of objects

- direction, intensity and stability


•Although measurement is quantitative in nature, it is not limited to physical quantities. It can extend to quantifying almost anything imaginable from degrees of uncertainty to consumer confidence to the rate of increase in the fall in the price of a good or service.

MEASUREMENT

•Nominal

•Ordinal

• Interval

•Ratio

LEVELS OF MEASUREMENT

•Nominal

- lowest level of measurement

- a categorization of elements to be measured

- categorization = mutually exclusive


•Nominal

- was first identified by psychologist Stanley Smith Stevens in the context of a child learning to categorize colors (red, blue, green, etc.) by comparing the similarity of a perceived color to each of a set of named colors previously learned by extensive definition


• Examples of Nominal Measures

- Variables such as age, gender, race, religion, marital status, telephone access code, make or model of a car, position on a team, birth place

- Yes or No responses


•Ordinal

- numbers assigned to objects represent the rank

order (e.g. 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.) of the entities measured

- allows researchers to rank people or issues along a continuum from the greatest amount to the smallest amount of the characteristic being measured

- can only be used for comparison but not to determine the numerical difference between the ordinals


• Examples of Ordinal Measures - educational level (School certificate, Diploma, 1st

Degree, Master’s Degree, Ph.D degree holder)

- rank in the army (Recruit, Corporal, Sergeant, Sergeant Major, Major, Colonel, Lt. Colonel, Brigadier-General, Major General, General)

- FIFA monthly ranking of national football teams

- measures of non-numeric concepts like satisfaction, happiness, discomfort, etc.


• Interval

- “space in between”

- scales in which we know not only the order, but also the exact differences between the values

- addition and subtraction


• Examples of Interval Measures

- temperature, year, date

- TOEIC scores


•Ratio Level

- ultimate nirvana when it comes to measurement scales because they tell about the order, the exact value between units, and have an absolute zero

- variables can be added, subtracted, multiplied, divided


• Examples of Ratio Measures

- height, weight, distance,

- time spent watching television

- number of words per story

- income

- number of dengue cases in a year


• Scales

- measure theoretical concerns which are generally measures of independent variables

- assignment of objects to numbers according to rules

- constructed simply by

accumulating the scores

assigned to individual items

SCALES AND INDEXES

• Index

- a measure of dependent variables

- a sum of series of individual yes/no questions, that are then combined in a single numeric score

SCALES AND INDEXES

• Likert Scale

- summated rating approach

- Rensis Likert

- most commonly used scale in mass communication and psychological research

- the respondent is presented with a statement and he is asked to indicate his level of agreement or disagreement on a scale

TYPES OF SCALES

• Example of Likert Scale

TYPES OF SCALES

•Guttman Scaling

- Guttman Scaling or Scalogram analysis

- Louis Guttman

- primary purpose is to ensure that the instrument measures only a single trait

- items are arranged in an order so that an individual who agrees with a particular item also agrees with items of lower rank-order

TYPES OF SCALES

• Example of Guttman ScalingAre you willing to permit immigrants to live in your

country?Are you willing to permit immigrants to live in your

community?Are you willing to permit immigrants to live in your

neighbourhood?Are you willing to permit immigrants to live next door to

you?Would you permit your child to marry an immigrant?

TYPES OF SCALES

• Thurstone Scales

- Louis Leon Thurstone

- first formal technique for measuring an attitude

- each statement has a numerical value indicating how favorable or unfavorable it to be judged and the mean score is computed indicating their attitude

TYPES OF SCALES

• Example of Thurstone Scales

TYPES OF SCALES

• Semantic Differential Scale

- Osgood, Suci and Tannenbaum

- used to measure the meaning an item has for an individual

- an object is assessed by the respondent on a set of bipolar adjective pairs (using 5-point rating scale)

TYPES OF SCALES

• Example of Semantic Differential Scale

TYPES OF SCALES

THANK YERRR

measurement

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