Attitude Measurement and Scales

7-1

After completion of this unit, you will be aware of:

      Concept of Attitude Attitude Measurement Scale Comparison of Measurement Scale Locket's Scale Thrustones Equal Appearing Interval Scale Guttamans Cumulative Scale

Concept of Attitude
Mental state of an individual which makes him to act or respond for or against, situations etc. with which his/her vested feelings of interest, liking, desire and so on, are directly or indirectly linked or associated.

Basic Purpose for Conducting Attitude Survey

   To compare results with other survey results To measure the effect of change that occurs To determine the nature and extent of feeling

Types of Scales
Attitude measurement is qualitative and abstract in nature. The four widely accepted levels of measurement called measurement scales are:  Nominal Scale  Ordinal Scale  Interval Scale  Ratio Scale Nominal Scale : Applied to qualitative data where the objects or items are classified into various discrete and distinctive groups or categories without any ranking or order associated

Example :
 Categorizing people according to religion  According to political affiliation  Smoking Vs non-smoking It doesnt posses attribute like magnitude, intervals or absolute zero.

Cont .

Ordinal Scale: Categories of items can be compared with each other only in order
of rank assigned to these categories. It posses the attribute of magnitude only.

Example :
   Categorization of students according to grades Categorization of teachers according to designation Ranking of two household according to income

Interval Scale : It possess both : magnitude as well as equal interval magnitude.

Does not posses the absolute zero point.

Example :
 Measures of height, weight and time are examples of interval scale
Cont .

Ratio Scale : It posses the attribute of absolute zero beside other attributes of
magnitude and equal intervals.

Example :
 Physical measurement such as height, weight, distance etc.

Comparison of Measurement Scales

Type Basic Empirical Operations Determination of Equality Determination of greater or less Determination of equality of intervals Determination of equality of ratios Typical Usage Typical Statistics Descriptive Nominal Classification of malefemale, smoker-non smoker Ranking : Preference data, market position, attitude measurement Index numbers, attitude measurement Sales, units produced, number of customers, costs, age etc. Percentage mode Median Inferential Chi-square

Ordinal

Rank-order correlation T-Test, Factor analysis Coefficient of variation

Interval

Mean, Range, Standard Deviation Geometric Mean

Ratio

Types of Scales
Lickerts Summated Scale
A set of attitude statements of which all are considered or approximated as having equal attitude value and each of which subjects respond with a degree of agreement or disagreement carrying different scores. Each respondents ranking is found out by totaling score on all statements.
S.No. 1. 2. Statement Advertising promotes sales HRD is an exploitation of people Agree 1 1 Disagree 0 0
Cont.

Lickerts Item Analysis

Respondents are asked to respond to a certain number of statements. Reply to each statement is given in terms of five degrees of agreement or disagreement. Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree