Theme: Measuring attitudes
For each of the following select the type of measurement scale described
| A. | Thurstone scale |
| B. | Guttman Scales |
| C. | Stapel's scale |
| D. | Q Sort technique |
| E. | Semantic Differential Scale |
| F. | Likert Scale |
| G. | Multi Dimensional Scaling |
For each of the following select the type of measurement scale described
| NaN. | A team of researchers are keen to explore attitudes to gender based income. They are presented with a statement which reads 'females should always receive the same pay as males'. They are then asked to select whether they 'strongly agree', 'agree', are 'uncertain', 'disagree', or 'strongly disagree'. |
| Likert Scale 80% |
| NaN. | A psychologist wishes to investigate attitudes into same sex marriage. They create a list of statements about same sex marriage which is then given to a panel of judges. The panel determine how negative or positive each statement is about same sex marriage and give each statement a corresponding score from 1 to 11. The list of statements is then given to a group of participants who are asked to mark whether they agree or disagree with each statement. |
| Thurstone scale 69% |
| NaN. | A consultant is keen to assess the attitudes of the nursing staff towards a junior doctor who has been working with the team for the past 6 months. The consultant creates a form which she gives to 6 nurses. On the form is a list of 10 items. Each item has an option of a score from one to seven. The first item relates to the doctors effort. Nurses are asked to rate how lazy or hard working the doctor is from 1 to 7 (with 1 being lazy and 7 being very hard working). |
The correct answer is: Semantic Differential Scale 56% |
Attitude scales
An attitudes is a person's feeling and thoughts towards something. Attitudes have a direction (positive or negative) and an intensity. Numerous methods have been devised to measure attitudes. You should have some knowledge of the following attitude scales.
Thurstone scale
To create a Thurstone scale, first you start with creating a list of statements relating to a concept or issue. Each statement is then assessed by a panel of judges and given a score regarding how negative or positive the statement is regarding the issue.
Individuals are then given the statements and asked to answer whether they agree or disagree with each statement.
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.
Likert Scale
Here, respondents are asked to indicate a degree of agreement or disagreement with each of a series of statements. Each scale item has 5 response categories ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree.
Semantic Differential Scale
This is a seven point scale and the end points of the scale are associated with bipolar labels.
For example one might wish to compare a group of individuals by an aspect of their personality such as dominant or submissive (bipolar labels).
Each individual could have any score from 1 (submissive) to 7 (dominant) with a score of 3-4 being neutral.
