Attitude Measurement Techniques Sasmita Mishra
What is Attitude? ■ Attitude is a behavioural disposition which is part of the
structure of human perception
■ It is an enduring organisation of motivational, emotional,
perceptual and cognitive processes with respect to some aspects of the individual’s world.
■ It is an enduring system of one’s belief, feeling and action
tendencies.
Belief
feeling Action
Fig. Components of Attitude 1
What is Measurement ■ The term measurement refers to obtaining symbols to represent
properties of objects, events or states. These obtained symbols have the same relevant relationship to each other as do the things which are represented by them.
■ It is concerned with the correspondence between empirical
entities and format model of abstract elements (e.g., number), relationship among these elements, and operations which can be performed on them. Such a rule of correspondence determines a scale.
■ There are different numerical scales to measure certain
attributes
Nominal scales Ordinal scales Interval scales Ratio Scales
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Scales ■ Nominal scale is otherwise known as categorical scale
Ex. Family types: nuclear, joint, extended/ gender: male and female ■ Ordinal scale arrange the objects as per the attributes.
Ex. A consumer may be asked to rank a group of washing powder brands according to their washing ability ■ Interval scales refer to those scales where specific values are
assigned to objects and the intervals between these values are equal. There is no true zero point
Ex.Fahrenheit and Centigrade scales used to measure temperature ■ An absolute zero exists is ratio scales. These scales represent the
‘elite’ of the scales, in that all arithmetic operations are permissible on ratio scale measurement.
Ex. If salesman A sells 30 units per day and salesman B sells 60 units per day then B’s output is twice that of A. This comparison can be possible if we are using ratio scale 1
How attitudes can be measured? Since there is not any physical component of attitudes, so it is
substantially difficult to measure these as compared to measuring of physical characteristics like weight,length and volume.
However, it can be measured in five different ways: Inferences based on selfreports of beliefs, feelings, and behaviours Inferences drawn from observations of overt behaviour Inferences drawn from responses to partially structured stimuli Inferences drawn from performances of objective tasks Inferences drawn from the psychological reaction to the attitudinal objects However, we are considering for discussion only the first of these approaches
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Selfreport measures ■ Rating scale: Noncomparative, comparative, Rank order rating
scale
■ Semantic Differential Scale ■ Thorstone’s equal appearing interval Scale ■ Likert’s Summated Scale ■ Guttman’s Scale ■ QSort scale ■ Staple Scale
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Rating scales ■ The use of rating scales requires the rater to place the object being
(perhaps himself) rated at some point along a numerically valued continuum, or in one of a numerically ordered series of categories.
■ There are two types of rating scales: noncomparative and comparative ■ NonComparative: In this case researcher does not make available to the
respondent a comparison point such as “average brand” or “your favourite brand. According to his or her judgment respondent uses a standard for comparison
Ex. (i) Overall, how do you rate the brand X of toothpaste? Excellent…………………………………..Very poor Ex. (ii) Overall how do you rate the brand X of toothpaste? Probably Very good neither good not at all good probably poor nor bad the very bad _________________________________________________________ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 1
Rating Scales ■ Comparative rating scales: In comparative rating scales, the
respondents apply different standards of their own in the absence of a specific standard. When a respondent is asked to rate the overall quality of a particular brand, he may compare it to his ideal brand, or to his current brand, or to his perception of the average brand.
This scale may provide accurate attitude of the individual respondent, but it is very difficult in part of the researcher to interpret a group’s score. ■ Graphic Itemized Comparative rating scales: Here the researcher uses
certain standard for all the respondents.
Ex. How do you like “Pepsi” as compared to “Coca Cola”? like it like it like it about like it less like it Don’t Know much more the same very less
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Rating Scales ■ Rank Order Rating Scale: This method requires the
respondents to rank a set of objects according to some criterion. The respondents may be asked to rank five brands of tooth paste on his overall preference, taste, style, package design and so on.
While using this method it is essential that the research includes at least the most relevant competing brands, product versions, or advertisements.
■ Constant Sum Scales: This method forces the respondents to rate the attributes on the basis of their relative importance to him.
Ex. Divide 100 points among characteristics listed as that the division will reflect how important each characteristics is to you in your selection of new automobile: Economy ________ Style ________ Comfort ________ Safety ________ Social status ________ Price ________
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Semantic Differential Scale ■ Developed by Osgood. This scale stresses on the development of
descriptive profiles that facilitate comparison of comparative items. The respondent is asked to indicate his attitude towards a given subject through a series of bipolar adjectives.
________________________________________________________ Expensive
Inexpensive
Wide selection
V.Limited selection
Reliable
Unreliable
Friendly
Unfriendly
Modern
Old fashioned
Convenient
Inconvenient
________________________________________________________________ Fig. Semantic differential used for measuring attitude of people towards a retail store
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Thorstone’s Equal Appearing Intervals ■ A large number of statements are developed relating to the
attitude to be measured
■ With the help of judges (20 or more) the statements are sorted out
independently into eleven piles
■ The statements are arranged in such a manner that the most
unfavourable statements are kept in pile one, the nutral statements are in pile six and the most favourable statements are in pile eleven.
■ After studying the frequency distribution of ratings for each
statement, statements with widely scattered ratings are eliminated as ambiguous
■ Scale value of each of the remaining statements is determined by
computing the median of the distribution
■ Items with the narrowest range of ratings are preferred for
selection as being the most reliable
■ The respondents are asked to indicate their agreement or
disagreement with each of these statements
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Thorstone’s Equal Appearing Intervals Illustration: consumer’s attitude towards newspaper ads. 3.
All newspaper ads should be banned by law (rating7.2)
4.
Reading newspaper ads is a complete wastage of time (8.6)
5.
Newspaper ads are completely monotonous (2.6)
6.
Most of the newspaper ads are pretty bad (7.1)
7.
Newspaper ads don’t interfere too much with the reading of news (4.0)
8.
I have no opinion for or against the newspaper ads (1.8)
9.
I like newspaper ads at times (3.0)
10. Most newspaper ads are farley interesting (2.0) 11. I like to buy products advertised in newspapers whenever possible (6.2) 12. Most newspaper ads help people select the best product available (5.0) 13. Newspaper ads are more fun to read than the regular news items (4.3)
Suppoese respondent A chooses statement 3, 6, 7 as the ones with which he agrees. His average score would be 2.6 + 1.8 + 3.0 = 2.47. The higher the number the more positive the attitude. 1
Likert’s Summated Scale ■ In comparison to Thurstone’s scale it asks the respondents to
react to a series of statements. They are asked to rate each statement on the basis of the strength of their personal feelings towards it. The gradations are: Strongly agree (+2), agree (+1), indifferent (0), disagree (1), and Strongly disagree (2).
_________________________________________________________ Interviewees Statements
A
B
C
__________________________________________________________ 1
+1
1
0
2
+2
1
+1
3
+2
1
+1
4
0
2
0
5
+2
0
1
6
+2
1
+2
7
+1
2
+2
__________________________________________________________To Total Score +10 8 +5 1