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Attitude Scales - Rating Scales to measure

data

Scaling Techniques for Measuring Data Gathered from

Respondents
The term scaling is applied to the attempts to measure the attitude objectively. Attitude is a resultant of
number of external and internal factors. Depending upon the attitude to be measured, appropriate scales
are designed. Scaling is a technique used for measuring qualitative responses of respondents such as those
related to their feelings, perception, likes, dislikes, interests and preferences.

Types of Scales
Most frequently used Scales
1. Nominal Scale
2. Ordinal Scale
3. Interval Scale
4. Ratio Scale

Self Rating Scales

1. Graphic Rating Scale
2. Itemized Rating Scales
a. Likert Scale
b. Semantic Differential Scale
c. Stapels Scale
d. Multi Dimensional Scaling
e. Thurston Scales
f. Guttman Scales/Scalogram Analysis
g. The Q Sort technique

Four types of scales are generally used for Marketing Research.

1. Nominal Scale
This is a very simple scale. It consists of assignment of facts/choices to various alternative categories
 This is a very simple scale. It consists of assignment of facts/choices to various alternative categories
which are usually exhaustive as well mutually exclusive. These scales are just numerical and are the
least restrictive of all the scales. Instances of Nominal Scale are - credit card numbers, bank account
numbers, employee id numbers etc. It is simple and widely used when relationship between two
variables is to be studied. In a Nominal Scale numbers are no more than labels and are used
specifically to identify different categories of responses. Following example illustrates -

What is your gender?

[ ] Male
[ ] Female

Another example is - a survey of retail stores done on two dimensions - way of maintaining stocks and
daily turnover.

How do you stock items at present?

[ ] By product category
[ ] At a centralized store
[ ] Department wise
[ ] Single warehouse

Daily turnover of consumer is?

[ ] Between 100 200
[ ] Between 200 300
[ ] Above 300

A two way classification can be made as follows

Daily/Stock
Product Department Centralized Single
Turnover
Category wise Store Warehouse
Method
100 200
200 300
Above 300

Mode is frequently used for response category.

2. Ordinal Scale
Ordinal scales are the simplest attitude measuring scale used in Marketing Research. It is more
powerful than a nominal scale in that the numbers possess the property of rank order. The ranking of
certain product attributes/benefits as deemed important by the respondents is obtained through the
scale.

Example 1: Rank the following attributes (1 - 5), on their importance in a microwave oven.

1. Company Name
2. Functions
3. Price
4. Comfort
5. Design

The most important attribute is ranked 1 by the respondents and the least important is ranked 5.
Instead of numbers, letters or symbols too can be used to rate in a ordinal scale. Such scale makes
no attempt to measure the degree of favourability of different rankings.

Example 2 - If there are 4 different types of fertilizers and if they are ordered on the basis of quality
as Grade A, Grade B, Grade C, Grade D is again an Ordinal Scale.

Example 3 - If there are 5 different brands of Talcom Powder and if a respondent ranks them based
on say, Freshness into Rank 1 having maximum Freshness Rank 2 the second maximum Freshness,
and so on, an Ordinal Scale results.

Median and mode are meaningful for ordinal scale.

 3. Interval Scale
Herein the distance between the various categories unlike in Nominal, or numbers unlike in Ordinal,
are equal in case of Interval Scales. The Interval Scales are also termed as Rating Scales. An Interval
Scale has an arbitrary Zero point with further numbers placed at equal intervals. A very good example
of Interval Scale is a Thermometer.

Illustration 1 - How do you rate your present refrigerator for the following qualities.

Company Less Well

1 2 3 4 5
Name Known Known
Functions Few 1 2 3 4 5 Many
Price Low 1 2 3 4 5 High
Design Poor 1 2 3 4 5 Good
Very
Overall Very
Dis- 1 2 3 4 5
Satisfaction Satisfied
Satisfied

Such a scale permits the researcher to say that position 5 on the scale is above position 4 and also
the distance from 5 to 4 is same as distance from 4 to 3. Such a scale however does not permit
conclusion that position 4 is twice as strong as position 2 because no zero position has been
established. The data obtained from the Interval Scale can be used to calculate the Mean scores of
each attributes over all respondents. The Standard Deviation (a measure of dispersion) can also be
calculated.

4. Ratio Scale
Ratio Scales are not widely used in Marketing Research unless a base item is made available for
comparison. In the above example of Interval scale, a score of 4 in one quality does not necessarily
mean that the respondent is twice more satisfied than the respondent who marks 2 on the scale. A
Ratio scale has a natural zero point and further numbers are placed at equally appearing intervals. For
example scales for measuring physical quantities like - length, weight, etc.

The ratio scales are very common in physical scenarios. Quantified responses forming a ratio scale
analytically are the most versatile. Rati scale possess all he characteristics of an internal scale, and
the ratios of the numbers on these scales have meaningful interpretations. Data on certain
demographic or descriptive attributes, if they are obtained through open-ended questions, will have
ratio-scale properties. Consider the following questions :

Q 1) What is your annual income before taxes? ______ $

Q 2) How far is the Theater from your home ? ______ miles

Answers to these questions have a natural, unambiguous starting point, namely zero. Since starting
point is not chosen arbitrarily, computing and interpreting ratio makes sense. For example we can say
that a respondent with an annual income of $ 40,000 earns twice as much as one with an annual
income of $ 20,000.

Self Rating Scales

1. Graphic Rating Scale
The respondents rate the objects by placing a mark at the appropriate position on a line that runs
from one extreme of the criterion variable to another. Example

0 1 5 7
(poor quality) (bad quality) (neither good nor bad) (good quality)

BRAND 1
 This is also known as continuous rating scale. The customer can occupy any position. Here one
attribute is taken ex-quality of any brand of icecream.

poor good

BRAND 2

This line can be vertical or horizontal and scale points may be provided. No other indication is there on
the continuous scale. A range is provided. To quantify the responses to question that indicate your
overall opinion about ice-ream Brand 2 by placing a tick mark at appropriate position on the line, we
measure the physical distance between the left extreme position and the response position on the
line.; the greater the distance, the more favourable is the response or attitude towards the brand.

Its limitation is that coding and analysis will require substantial amount of time, since we first have to
measure the physical distances on the scale for each respondent.

2. Itemized Rating Scales

These scales are different from continuous rating scales. They have a number of brief descriptions
associated with each category. They are widely used in Marketing Research. They essentially take the
form of the multiple category questions. The most common are - Likert, Sementic, Staple and Multiple
Dimension. Others are - Thurston and Guttman.

a. Likert Scale
It was developed Rensis Likert. Here the respondents are asked to indicate a degree of
agreement and disagreement with each of a series of statement. Each scale item has 5
response categories ranging from strongly agree and strongly disagree.

5 4 3 2 1
Strongly agree Agree Indifferent Disagree Strongly disagree

Each statement is assigned a numerical score ranging from 1 to 5. It can also be scaled as -2 to
+2.

-2 -1 0 1 2

For example quality of Mother Diary ice-cream is poor then Not Good is a negative statement
and Strongly Agree with this means the quality is not good.

Each degree of agreement is given a numerical score and the respondents total score is
computed by summing these scores. This total score of respondent reveals the particular
opinion of a person.

Likert Scale are of ordinal type, they enable one to rank attitudes, but not to measure the
difference between attitudes. They take about the same amount of efforts to create as
Thurston scale and are considered more discriminating and reliable because of the larger range
of responses typically given in Likert scale.

A typical Likert scale has 20 - 30 statements. While designing a good Likert Scale, first a large
pool of statements relevant to the measurement of attitude has to be generated and then from
the pool statements, the statements which are vague and non-discriminating have to be
eliminated.

Thus, likert scale is a five point scale ranging from strongly agreementto strongly
disagreement. No judging gap is involved in this method.

b. Semantic Differential Scale

This is a seven point scale and the end points of the scale are associated with bipolar labels.
 1 7
Unpleasant 2 3 4 5 6 Pleasant
Submissive Dominant

Suppose we want to know personality of a particular person. We have options-

1. Unpleasant/Submissive
2. Pleasant/Dominant

Bi-polar means two opposite streams. Individual can score between 1 to 7 or -3 to 3. On the
basis of these responses profiles are made. We can analyse for two or three products and by
joining these profiles we get profile analysis. It could take any shape depending on the number
of variables.

Profile Analysis

---------------/---------------
----------/--------------------
--------/----------------------

Mean and median are used for comparison. This scale helps to determine overall similarities
and differences among objects.

When Semantic Differential Scale is used to develop an image profile, it provides a good basis
for comparing images of two or more items. The big advantage of this scale is its simplicity,
while producing results compared with those of the more complex scaling methods. The
method is easy and fast to administer, but it is also sensitive to small differences in attitude,
highly versatile, reliable and generally valid.

c. Stapels Scale
It was developed by Jan Stapel. This scale has some distinctive features:-

i. Each item has only one word/phrase indicating the dimension it represents.
ii. Each item has ten response categories.
iii. Each item has an even number of categories.
iv. The response categories have numerical labels but no verbal labels.

For example, in the following items, suppose for quality of ice cream, we ask respondents to
rank from +5 to -5. Select a plus number for words which best describe the ice cream
accurately. Select a minus number for words you think do not describe the ice cream quality
accurately. Thus, we can select any number from +5,for words we think are very accurate, to -
5,for words we think are very inaccurate. This scale is usually presented vertically.

+5
+4
+3
+2
+1
High Quality
-1
-2
-3
-4
-5

This is a unipolar rating scale.

d. Multi Dimensional Scaling

It consists of a group of analytical techniques which are used to study consumer attitudes
related to perceptions and preferences. It is used to study-
 I. The major attributes of a given class of products perceivedby the consumers in
considering the product and by which they compare the different ranks.
II. To study which brand competes most directly with each other.
III. To find out whether the consumers would like a new brand with a combination of
characteristics not found in the market.
IV. What would be the consumers ideal combination of product attributes.
V. What sales and advertising messages are compatible with consumers brand perceptions.

It is a computer based technique. The respondents are asked to place the various brands into
different groups like similar, very similar, not similar, and so on. A goodness of fit is traded off
on a large number of attributes. Then a lack of fit index is calculated by computer program. The
purpose is to find a reasonably small number of dimensions which will eliminate most of the
stress. After the configuration for the consumers preference has been developed, the next
step is to determine the preference with regards to the product under study. These techniques
attempt to identify the product attributes that are important to consumers and to measure
their relative importance.

This scaling involves a unrealistic assumption that a consumer who compares different brands
would perceive the differences on the basis of only one attribute. For example, what are the
attributes for joining M.Com course. The responses may be -to do PG, to go into teaching line,to
get knowledge, appearing in the NET. There are a number of attributes, you can not base
decision on one attribute only. Therefore, when the consumers are choosing between brands,
they base their decision on various attributes. In practice, the perceptions of the consumers
involve different attributes and any one consumer perceives each brand as a composite of a
number of different attributes. This is a shortcoming of this scale.

Whenever we choose from a number of alternatives, go for multi- dimensional scaling. There are
many possible uses of such scaling like in market segmentation, product life cycle, vendor
evaluations and advertising media selection.

The limitation of this scale is that it is difficult to clearly define the concept of similarities and
preferences. Further the distances between the items are seen as different

e. Thurston Scales
These are also known as equal appearing interval scales. They are used to measure the attitude
towards a given concept or construct. For this purpose a large number of statements are
collected that relate to the concept or construct being measured. The judges rate these
statements along an 11 category scale in which each category expresses a different degree of
favourableness towards the concept. The items are then ranked according to the mean or
median ratings assigned by the judges and are used to construct questionnaire of twenty to
thirty items that are chosen more or less evenly across the range of ratings.

The statements are worded in such a way so that a person can agree or disagree with them.
The scale is then administered to assemble of respondents whose scores are determined by
computing the mean or median value of the items agreed with. A person who disagrees with all
the items has a score of zero. So, the advantage of this scale is that it is an interval
measurement scale. But it is the time consuming method and labour intensive. They are
commonly used in psychology and education research.

f. Guttman Scales/Scalogram Analysis

It is based on the idea that items can be arranged along a continuem in such a way that a
person who agrees with an item or finds an item acceptable will also agree with or find
acceptable all other items expressing a less extreme position. For example - Children should
not be allowed to watch indecent programmes or government should ban these programmes or
they are not allowed to air on the television. They all are related to one aspect.

In this scale each score represents a unique set of responses and therefore the total score of
every individual is obtained. This scale takes a lot of time and effort in development.

They are very commonly used in political science, anthropology, public opinion, research and
psychology.
 g. The Q Sort technique
It is used to discriminate among large number of objects quickly. It uses a rank order procedure
and the objects are sorted into piles based on similarity with respect to some criteria. The
number of objects to be sorted should be between 60-140 approximately. For example, here we
are taking nine brands. On the basis of taste we classify the brands into tasty, moderate and
non tasty.

We can classify on the basis of price also-Low, medium, high. Then we can attain the perception
of people that whether they prefer low priced brand, high or moderate. We can classify sixty
brands or pile it into three piles. So the number of objects is to be placed in three piles-low,
medium or high.

Thus, the Q-sort technique is an attempt to classify subjects in terms of their similarity to
attribute under study.

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