Naval Bajpai
Business Research Methods
Scaling
Chapter 3
Measurement and
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Learning Objectives
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Upon completion of this chapter, you will be able to:
Understand the scale of measurement
and four levels of data measurement
Understand the criteria for good
measurement
Learn about the various established
measurement scales used in business
research
Understand the factors to be considered
in selecting the appropriate
measurement scales
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WHAT SHOULD BE MEASURED?
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The measurement of physical properties
is not a complex deal, whereas
measurement of psychological
properties requires a careful attention
of a researcher.
The quality of the research always
depends on the fact that what
measurement techniques are
adopted by the researcher and how
these fit in the prevailing research
circumstances.
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Scales of Measurement
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Nominal scale
Ordinal scale
Interval scale
Ratio scale
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Scales of Measurement
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Nominal Scale: When data are labels or names used to
identify the attribute of an element, the nominal scale is
used.
Ordinal Scale: In addition to nominal level data
capacities, ordinal scale can be used to rank or order
objects.
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Scales of Measurement
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Interval Scale: In interval level measurement, the
difference between two consecutive numbers is meaningful.
Ratio Scale: Ratio level measurements possess all the
properties of interval data with meaningful ratio of two
values.
In terms of measurement capacity, nominal, ordinal,
interval, and ratio level data are placed in ascending order.
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Figure 3.1: A comparison between the four levels of data
measurement in terms of usage potential
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THE CRITERIA FOR GOOD MEASUREMENT
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1. Validity
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In fact, validity is the ability of an
instrument to measure what is
designed to measure.
It sounds simple that a measure
should measure what it is supposed to
measure but has a great deal of
difficulty in real life.
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1(a) Content Validity
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The content validation includes, but is not
limited to, careful specification of constructs,
review of scaling procedures by content validity
judges, and consultation with experts and the
members of the population (Vogt et al., 2004).
Sometimes, the content validity is also referred
as face validity.
In fact, the content validity is a subjective
evaluation of the scale for its ability to
measure what it is supposed to measure.
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1(b)Criterion Validity
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The criterion validity is the ability of the variable
to predict the key variables or criteria (Lehmann
et al., 1998).
It involves the determination of whether the
scale is able to perform up to the
expectation with respect to the other
variables or criteria.
Criterion variables may include demographic and
psychographic characteristics, attitudinal and
behavioural measures, or scales obtained from
other scales (Malhotra, 2004).
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1(c) Construct Validity
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The construct validity is the initial concept, notion,
question, or hypothesis that determines which data
are to be generated and how they are to be gathered
(Golafshani, 2003).
To achieve the construct validity, the researcher
must focus on convergent validity and
discriminant validity.
The convergent validity is established when the new
measure correlates or converges with other
similar measures.
The literal meaning of correlation or convergence
specifically indicates the degree to which the score on
one measuring instrument (scale) is correlated with
other measuring instrument (scale) developed to
measure the same constructs.
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Discriminant validity
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Discriminant validity is established when a new
measuring instrument has low correlation
or nonconvergence with the measures of
dissimilar concept.
The literal meaning of no correlation or non-
convergence specifically indicates the degree to
which the score on one measuring instrument
(scale) is not correlated with the other
measuring instrument (scale) developed to
measure the different constructs.
To establish the construct validity, a researcher
has to establish the convergent validity and
discriminant validity.
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2 Reliability
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Reliability is the tendency of a respondent to respond in
the same or in a similar manner to an identical or a near
identical question (Burns & Bush, 1999).
A measure is said to be reliable when it elicits the same
response from the same person when the measuring
instrument is administered to that person successively in
similar or almost similar circumstances.
Reliable measuring instruments provide confidence to a
researcher that the transient and situational factors are
not intervening in the process, and hence, the measuring
instrument is robust.
A researcher can adopt three ways to handle the issue of
reliability: test–retest reliability, equivalent forms
reliability, and internal consistency reliability.
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2(a)Test–Retest Reliability
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To execute the test–retest reliability, the same
questionnaire is administered to the same
respondents to elicit responses in two
different time slots.
As a next step, the degree of similarity between
the two sets of responses is determined.
To assess the degree of similarity between the
two sets of responses, correlation coefficient is
computed. Higher correlation coefficient
indicates a higher reliable measuring instrument,
and lower correlation coefficient indicates an
unreliable measuring instrument.
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2(b)Equivalent Forms Reliability
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In test–retest reliability, a researcher considers
personal and situation fluctuation in
responses in two different time periods,
whereas in the case of considering equivalent
forms reliability, two equivalent forms are
administered to the subjects at two different
times.
To measure the desired characteristics of
interest, two equivalent forms are constructed
with different sample of items. Both the forms
contain the same type of questions and the
same structure with some specific difference.
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2 (c) Internal Consistency Reliability
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The internal consistency reliability is used to assess the
reliability of a summated scale by which several items are
summed to form a total score (Malhotra, 2004).
The basic approach to measure the internal consistency
reliability is split-half technique.
In this technique, the items are divided into equivalent groups.
This division is done on the basis of some predefined aspects as
odd versus even number questions in the questionnaire or split
of items randomly.
After division, responses on items are correlated. High
correlation coefficient indicates high internal consistency, and low
correlation coefficient indicates low internal consistency.
Subjectivity in the process of splitting the items into two parts
poses some common problems for the researchers.
A very common approach to deal with this problem is
coefficient alpha or Cronbach’s alpha.
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The coefficient alpha or Cronbach’s
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alpha
The coefficient alpha or Cronbach’s alpha
is actually a mean reliability coefficient for
all the different ways of splitting the
items included in the measuring
instruments.
As different from correlation coefficient,
coefficient alpha varies from 0 to 1, and
a coefficient value of 0.6 or less is
considered to be unsatisfactory.
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3. Sensitivity
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Sensitivity is the ability of a measuring instrument to
measure the meaningful difference in the responses
obtained from the subjects included in the study.
It is to be noted that the dichotomous categories of
response such as yes or no can generate a great deal or
variability in the responses.
Hence, a scale with many items as a sensitive measure is
required.
For example, a scale based on five categories of
responses, such as “strongly disagree,” “disagree,”
“neither agree nor disagree,” “agree,” and “strongly
agree,” presents a more sensitive measuring instrument.
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MEASUREMENT SCALES
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Comparative scales are based on the direct comparison
of stimulus and generally generate some ranking or
ordinal data.
This is the reason why these scales are sometimes
referred as non-metric scales. Non-comparative
scaling techniques generally involve the use of a rating
sale, and the resulting data are interval or ratio in
nature.
This is the reason why these scales are referred as
monadic scales or metric scales by some business
researchers.
This section is an attempt to discuss the various types of
scales in the light of items included in the scales.
These are single-item scales, multi-item scales, and
continuous rating scales.
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FIGURE 3.3 : The classification of
measurement scales
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1. Single-Item Scales
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As clear from the name, the single-
item scales measure only one item as
a construct.
Some of the commonly used single-
item scales in the field of business
research are multiple choice scales,
forced-ranking scales, paired-
comparison scales, constant-sum
scales, direct quantification scales, and
Q-sort scales.
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1(a) Multiple-Choice Scale
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Researcher tries to generate some basic
information to conduct his or her research work,
and for the sake of convenience or further analysis,
he or she codes it by assigning different numbers to
different characteristics of interest.
This type of measurement is commonly referred as
multiple-choice scale and results in generating the
nominal data. In this type of scale, the researcher
poses a single question with multiple response
alternatives.
For a mere quantification reason, a researcher
assigns 1 to the first response, 2 to the second
response, and so on. It is important to note that the
numbers provide only the nominal information.
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FIGURE 3.4 : Examples of multiple-choice
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scales
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1(b)Forced-Choice Ranking
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In the forced-choice ranking scaling technique,
the respondents rank different objects
simultaneously from a list of objects presented
to them.
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FIGURE 3.5 : Example of forced-choice
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scale
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1(c) Paired-Comparison Technique
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As the name indicates, in the paired-comparison
scaling technique, a respondent is presented a pair of
objects or stimulus or brands and the respondent
is supposed to provide his or her preference of the
object from a pair.
When n items (objects or brands) are included in the
study, a respondent has to make n(n −1) / 2 paired
comparisons.
Sometimes, a researcher uses the “principle of
transitivity” to analyse the data obtained from a
paired-comparison scaling technique. Transitivity is a
simple concept that says that if Brand “X” is preferred
over Brand “Y” and Brand “Y” is preferred over Brand
“Z,” then Brand “X” is also preferred over Brand “Z”.
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FIGURE 3.6 : Example of paired comparison
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scaling technique
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1(d) Constant-Sum Scales
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In the constant-sum scaling
technique, the respondents allocate
points to more than one stimulus objects
or object attributes or object properties,
such that the total remains a constant
sum of usually 10 or 100.
The sum of all the points should be equal
to a predefined constant 100 or 10,
which is why this scale is called the
constant-sum scale. This scaling technique
generates the ratio-level data.
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FIGURE 3.7 : Example of a constant-
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sum scale
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1(e) Direct Quantification Scale
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The simplest form of obtaining
information is to directly ask a
question related to some
characteristics of interest resulting in
ratio-scaled data. Researchers generally
ask a question related to payment
intention of consumers.
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Figure 3.8 :Example of the direct
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quantification scale
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1(f)Q-Sort Scales
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The objective of the Q-sort scaling
technique is to quickly classify a
large number of objects. In this kind
of scaling technique, the respondents
are presented with a set of
statements, and they classify it on the
basis of some predefined number of
categories (piles), usually 11.
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2. Multi-Item Scales
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Multi-item scaling techniques generally generate
some interval type of information. In interval
scaling technique, a scale is constructed with the
number or description associated with each scale
position. Therefore, the respondent’s rating on
certain characteristics of interest is obtained.
For the majority of researchers, the rating scales
are the preferred measuring device to obtain
interval (or quasi-interval) data on the personal
characteristics (i.e., attitude, preference, and
opinions) of the individuals of all kind (Peterson,
1997).
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2(a) Summated Scaling Technique: The
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Likert Scales
In a Likert scale, each item response has five rating categories,
“strongly disagree” to “strongly agree” as two extremes with
“disagree,” “neither agree nor disagree,” and “agree” in the
middle of the scale. Typically, a 1- to 5-point rating scale is used,
but few researchers also use another set of numbers such as −2,
−1, 0, +1, and +2.
The analysis can be done by using either profile analysis or
summated analysis.
The profile analysis is item-by-item analysis, where the
respondent’s scores are obtained for each item of the scale, and
the analysis is also done on the basis of individual item scores.
As another approach, scores are obtained from the respondents,
and the sum is obtained across the scale items. After summing,
an average is obtained for all the respondents. The summated
approach is widely used, which is why the Likert scale is also
referred as the summated scale.
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FIGURE 3.9 : Example of Likert scale
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2(b) Semantic Differential Scales
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The semantic differential scale
consists of a series of bipolar
adjectival words or phrases placed on
the two extreme points of the scale.
Good semantic differential scales keep
some negative adjectives and some
positive adjectives on the left side of the
scale to tackle the problem of the halo
effect.
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FIGURE 3.11: Example of semantic
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differential scale
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2(c) Staple Scales
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The staple scale is generally
presented vertically with a single
adjective or phrase in the centre of
the positive and negative ratings.
Similar to the Likert scale and the
semantic differential scale, in a staple
scale, points are at equidistant
position both physically and
numerically, which usually results in
the interval-scaled responses.
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FIGURE 3.12:Example of staple scale
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2(d) Numerical Scales
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Numerical scales provide equal
intervals separated by numbers, as
scale points to the respondents.
These scales are generally 5- or 7-
point rating scales.
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FIGURE 3.13: Example of numerical scale
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(3) Continuous Rating Scales
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In a continuous rating scale, the
respondents rate the object by placing a
mark on a continuum to indicate their
attitude. In this scale, the two ends of
continuum represent the two extremes of the
measuring phenomenon.
This scale is also referred as a graphing rating
scale and allows a respondent to select his or
her own rating point instead of the rating points
predefined by the researcher.
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FIGURE 3.14: Example of a continuous
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rating scale
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FACTORS IN SELECTING AN APPROPRIATE
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MEASUREMENT SCALE
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