19 Measurement Techniques

P. DEIVANAI

Introduction

Measurement is the process observing and recording the observations

that are collected as part of a research effort. Measurement is the
foundation of all scientific investigation. It may be defined as the
assignment of numbers to characteristics of objects or events according
to rules. It is important to note that is the characteristics of objects or
events that are measured and not the objects or events themselves.
Measurement defines “measurement is the assignment of numbers to
objects” it means measuring the personality characteristics by assigning a
number” (a score on the test) to an object (a Person). For example, we can
measure buyers preference, income and attitude and products’ wetness. A
business man engaged in marketing the products is interested in
measuring the market potential for a new product, buyer’s attitude,
perceptions or preferences towards a new brand. This measurement
process gives scope for providing meaningful information for decision
making. There are two basic kinds of data Non-Metric (qualitative data)
and metric (quantitative).

Non-Metric (Qualitative data)

Non-metric data are attributes, characteristics or categorical properties

that identify or describe subject. Non metric data describe differences in
type or kind by indicating the presence or absence of a characteristic or
property. Many properties are discrete in that by having a particular
feature, all other features are excluded’; for example, if one is male, one
cannot female. There is no ‘amount’ of gender, just the state of being male
or female.

In contrast metric data metrically measured variables reflect

relative quantity or degree. Measurements are made so that subjects
may be identified as differing in amount or degree.

Metrically measured variables reflect relative quantity or degree. Metric

measurements are appropriate for cases involving amount or magnitude,
such as height, weight, temperature, rainfall, etc.

The table 1 summarizes the four types of measurement. Table 1

Understanding of the different types of measurement scales is important

for two reasons: one, to avoid the incorrect use of non metric data as
metric data and vice versa and two, to determine which multivariate
techniques are the most applicable to the data.

Components of measurement
 Ideally speaking, there should be only one component of a measurement
and this component should be a direct reflection of the characteristic
being measured. Unfortunately, such a situation seldom exists. Very often,
a measurement consists of not one but two components-one
representing the influence of the characteristic being measured and the
other representing the influence of those characteristics which the
researcher is not interested in measuring but which still creep in against
his wishes. These other characteristics are as follows:

1. Additional stable characteristics of the object or event, for example

the respondents tendency to give only favorable responses
independent of his true feelings.
2. Short – term characteristics of the objects, for example fatigue,
health, hunger, and emotional state.
3. Situational characteristics, for example, the presence or absence of
some of the person or of location under which the measurement is
taken.
4. Characteristics of the measurement process, for example, sex, age,
ethnic background, and style of dress for the interviewer or the
method of interviewing- telephone, mail, personal interview, etc.
5. Characteristics of the measuring instrument, for example, unclear
instructions ambiguous questions, confusing terms, omitted
questions, etc
6. Characteristics of the response process, for example, mistakes
caused by checking a wrong response.
7. Characteristics of the analysis, for example mistake caused by wrong
coding, tabulating,etc.

Six out of these seven characteristics (2 to 7) give raise to variable errors

in a measurement, i.e., errors which occur randomly each it something is
measured. First characteristics gives rise to a systematic error, i.e., error
that occurs in a consistent manner each time something is measured. It is
also called bias.

Thus, the general situation is: M = C +VE +SE,

 where M stands for the measurement, C stands for the characteristic
being measured, VE stands for variable errors and SE stands for
systematic errors.

Accuracy of measurement

Accuracy of measurement depends upon the extent to which it is free

from systematic and variable errors. Freedom from variable errors is
known as the reliability of a measurement and freedom from systematic
errors is known as the validity of a measurement. Reliability and validity
are thus, two essential criteria of every measure and its important for
every researcher to know how they are measured.

MEASUREMENT IN SCALE

Scale is a yardstick like any instrument for finding length, weight,

volume and the like The scale does not possess the properties associated
with most physical measures. The scales can be generally classified into
following major categories.

Nominal scale
 In nominal scale, numbers are used to identify or categories objects or
events. For example, the population of a town may be classified according
to sex into “male” and Female or accordingto religion into “Hindus”,
“Muslims”, Christians”. In marketing research nominal scales are needed
to measure brands, store types, sales territories, geographical locations,
heavy versus light users, working versus non-working women and brand
awareness versus non-awareness. The following table gives an idea
regarding the use of nominal scale.

As it could be seen from the illustration, males are concerned with speed
and females are concerned with weight. Nominal scales cab be developed
from a response to a question Does your car have chakra tyres? The
responses may be yes, No and don’t know. For nominally scaled data,
statistical analysis such as mode, percentages, the binomial test and chi-
squared test can be use. A mean or median cannot be calculated.

ii) Ordinal Scale

The ordinal scale indicates the relative position of two or more obects
or some characteristics. The consumers are asked to rank preference for
several brands, flavors or package designs. The measures of such
preference ]are ordinal in nature. One may rank two or more households
according to their annual income. Suppose we have five households with
annual incomes as shown below:
The marketing data involves ordinal measurement. Most data collected by
the process of interrogation have ordinal properties. For example, the
measurement of attitude, opinion preference and perception involves’
greater than’ or “less than’ Judgments.

iii) Interval scale:

The interval scale has all characteristics of the ordinal scale and in
addition, the units of measure or intervals between successive positions
are equal. For example, a research scaled brands A, B and C on an interval
scale regarding the buyers’ degree of liking of the brands. Brand a receives
the highest liking score of 6 B receives 3 and C receives 2. First the linking
for brand A is more favorable than that for brand B. Second the degree of
liking between A and B is three times greater than the liking between B
and C.
 The statistical tools used to analyzer the interval data are range, mean,
standard deviation and the like. Interval scales are frequently used in
commercial marketing research studies, especially in collecting attitudinal
and overall brand rating information.

Ratio Scales

The ratio scales have all the properties of nominal scale, ordinal scale
and intervals scale. They have order, distance and unique origin. Once a
ration scale has been established, its value can be transformed only by
multiplying each value by a constant. Thus, on a ratio scale, a score of 90
is twice that of 45.

Errors

Re-zero the instrument if possible, or measure the displacement of the

zero reading from the true zero and correct any measurements
accordingly. … Parallax (systematic or random) – This error can occur
whenever there is some distance between the measuring scale and the
indicator used to obtain a measurement. The measurement of an amount
is based on some international standards which are completely accurate
compared with others. Generally, measurement of any quantity is done by
comparing it with derived standards with which they are not completely
accurate. Thus, the errors in measurement are not only due to error in
methods, but are also due to derivation being not done perfectly well. So,
100% measurement error is not possible with any methods. It is very
important for the operator to take proper care of the experiment while
performing on industrial instruments so that the error in measurement
can be reduced. Some of the errors are constant in nature due to the
unknown reasons, some will be random in nature, and the other will be
due to gross blunder on the part of the experimenter.

Sources of Error in Measurement scale

Measurement scale should be precise the source of error and

unequivocal in an ideal researches. This objective, however, is often not
met with in entirety. As such the researcher must be aware about the
sources of error in measurement. The following content may expresses
the possible sources of error on measurement.

Instrument error refers to the combined accuracy and precision of a

measuring instrument, or the difference between the actual value and the
value indicated by the instrument (error). Measuring instruments are
usually calibrated on some regular frequency against a standard.

Respondent error

• The respondent error consist the respondent providing information

for research it may be inaccurate or wrong information.
• They occur because of memory biases or respondents giving
inaccurate or false information when they believe that they are
protecting their personal interests or integrity.
• They can also arise from the way the respondent interprets the
questionnaire and the wording of the answer that the respondent
gives.
• Careful questionnaire design and effective questionnaire testing can
overcome these problems to some extent

Respondent: The respondent it may be reluctant to explain the thought

about the negative(-) feelings, instead that just favorable that they have
very little knowledge but may not admit his ignorance. All this lack of
enthusiasm is likely to result in an interview of ‘guesses.’ Transient factors
like fatigue, boredom, anxiety, etc. may limit the ability of the respondent
to respond accurately and fully.

Situation: Situational factors may also come in the way of correct

measurement. The condition which is places a strain on interview can
have serious effects on the interviewer-respondent rapport. For instance,
if someone else is present, he can distort responses by joining in or merely
by being present. If the respondent feels that anonymity is not assured, he
may be reluctant to express certain feelings.
 Measurer: The interviewer can distort responses by rewording or
reordering questions. His behaviour, style and looks may encourage or
discourage certain replies from respondents. Careless mechanical
processing may distort the findings. Errors may also creep in because of
incorrect coding, faulty tabulation and/or statistical calculations,
particularly in the data-analysis stage.

Instrument: Error may arise because of the defective measuring

instrument. The study beyond the understanding of the respondent would
make the ambiguous meanings of poor printing, and insufficient space for
response and choice omissions, there are a few things that make the
measuring instrument defective and it result in measurement errors.
Another type of instrument deficiency is the poor sampling of the
universe of items of concern. The study it may extent possible and try to
eliminate, neutralize or otherwise deal with all the possible sources of
error so that the final results may not be contaminated.

Errors in Measurement System

An error may be defined as the difference between the measured value

and the actual value. For example, if the two operators use the same
device or instrument for finding the errors in measurement, it is not
necessary that they may get the similar results. There may be a difference
between both measurements. The difference that occurs between both
the measurements is referred to as an ERROR. Sequentially, to understand
the concept of errors in measurement, you should know the two terms
that define the error. They are true value and measured value. The true
value is impossible to find out the truth of quantity by experimental
means. It may be defined as the average value of an infinite number of
measured values. Measured value can be defined as the estimated value of
true value that can be found by taking several measured values during an
experiment.
Random Errors
TECHNIQUE OF DEVELOPING MEASUREMENT SCALE

The technique of developing measurement tools consists four-stages of

process. It consisting of the following:

Understanding of major concepts.

The first and foremost step is that of concept development which means
that the analysis should clarified and an understanding of the major
concepts needed to his study. This study concentrate to develop the
concept and making the analysis should be most suitable apparent in
theoretical studies than in the more pragmatic research, where the
fundamental concepts are often already established.

Concepts of Dimensions

The II steps requires the researcher to specify the dimensions of the

concepts that he developed in the first stage. This task should be
accomplished based on deduction. It means that the adopting a new
intuitive approach to taken by empirical correlation which is based on the
individual dimensions with the total concept. It think more or less several
dimensions like that reputation of products, treatment of customers,
leading the corporate leadership, concern forindividuals, sense of social
responsibility and so forth when one is thinking about the image of a
certain industry. The dimensions concepts specified, the analysis should
in-depth develop indicators for measuring step by step development of
research elements.

Perfect measure of a concept

Indicators are specific questions, scales, or other devices by which

respondent’s knowledge, opinion, expectation, etc., are measured. As
there is seldom a perfect measure of a concept, the researcher should
consider several alternatives for the purpose. The use of more than one
indicator gives stability to the scores and it also improves their validity.

Combining the various indicators

The fourth step is that of combining the different indicators into an

index that is formation of an index. The study have different kind of
dimensions concept, and it may be consists the various dimension of
measurements, it need to combine them into a single index. The one or
more simplest methods are there to getting an overall index is to proved
the scale values to the customers and calculate the total score with the
help of scale value to find out the corresponding scores. The overall index
given a satisfactory measurement tool to indicate a single indicator i.e
that the fact which indicate the individual indicator had the probability
chance identification and what we really want to know. This way it may
obtain an overall index for the different dimension concepts of the
research study.

Conclusion

The measurement research in science or social science which is help to

provide meaningful information for decision making process. The scale of
measurement which is help to marketing research to measure brands,
store types, sales territories, geographical locations, heavy versus light
users, working versus non-working women and brand awareness versus
non-awareness. Measurement is the assignment of numbers or other
symbols to characteristics of objects according to set rules. Scaling
involves the generation of a continuum upon which measure objects or
located. Scaling techniques can be classified as comparative or non
comparative. It involves a direct comparison of stimulus objects. The
statistics measurement techniques which are highly need to research.