MEASUREMENT

Prepared by:
Miss Gracey
Communication Research

COVERAGE
Definition of Measurement
Levels of Measurement
Scales and Indexes
Types of Scales

MEASUREMENT: GENERAL DEFINITION

the process of determining dimensions, values or
degrees

MEASUREMENT: IN SOCIAL SCIENCE

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: CONCEPTS
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

MEASUREMENT: CONCEPTS
Rules
- specify the way that numerals or numbers
are to be assigned

MEASUREMENT: CONCEPTS
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

MEASUREMENT
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.

LEVELS OF MEASUREMENT
Nominal
Ordinal
Interval
Ratio

LEVELS OF MEASUREMENT
Nominal
- lowest level of measurement
- a categorization of elements to be measured
- categorization = mutually exclusive

LEVELS OF MEASUREMENT
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

LEVELS OF MEASUREMENT
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

LEVELS OF MEASUREMENT
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

LEVELS OF MEASUREMENT
Examples of Ordinal Measures
- educational level (School certificate, Diploma, 1st
Degree, Masters Degree, Ph.D degree holder)
- rank in the army (Recruit, Corporal, Sergeant,
Sergeant Major, Major, Colonel, Lt. Colonel, BrigadierGeneral, Major General, General)
- FIFA monthly ranking of national football teams
- measures of non-numeric concepts like
satisfaction, happiness, discomfort, etc.

LEVELS OF MEASUREMENT
Interval
- space in between
- scales in which we know not only the order, but
also the exact differences between the values
- addition and subtraction

LEVELS OF MEASUREMENT
Examples of Interval Measures
- temperature, year, date
- TOEIC scores

LEVELS OF MEASUREMENT
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

LEVELS OF MEASUREMENT
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 AND INDEXES

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

TYPES OF SCALES
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 Scaling
Are 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

THANK YERRR