ATTITUDE SCALE INTRODUCTION: We have to learn habits , skills, social norms and standards and desirable knowledge and

attitudes. we develop out skill and character as we live with others. besides our behaviour is governed not only by our motives and emotions it is determined and influenced by more enduring depositions which include attitude and characters .these enduring organization have been built up gradually around some aspects of our life and in their building and organization, emotional perceptual and cognitive processes have play an important role. TERMINOLOGIES: ATTITUDE: It means a stable set or disposition of opinion , interest or purpose. we expect a certain kind of experience and are ready to give suitable response. APTITUDE: Natural ability of the individual to acquire general or special types of knowledge or skill. BEHAVIOUR: It refers to total response , motor and glandular which an organism makes to any situation with which it is faced. EMPIRICAL: It implies knowledge based on the individual .it is not based on wide scientific knowledge. MILIEU: It means immediate environment, physical and social with emphasis upon the later. QUESTIONNAIRE: A series of dealing with some psychological, social, educational topic or topics sent or given to a group of individual with the object of obtaining data with regards to some problems.

CLASSIFICATION OF TEST: The nature and type of test is determined by the particular purpose of measurement various authors have given different classification of test. 1. On the basis of type of question: y Essay or free answer type y Short answer type y objective or new type  Alternative response type  Multiple response type  Matching type  Completion type  simple recall type 2. On the basis of administration: y Individual Vs group test y oral Vs written test y Speed Vs power test 3. On the basis of standardization: y Non standardized test y Teacher made informal objective type y Standardized test 4. On the basis of scoring: y Amenable to qualitative scoring y Amenable to stencil or punch board scoring y Amenable to machine scoring. 5. On the basis of trails: y Intelligence test y test of specific abilities y Personality test and adjustment NON STANDARDIZED TEST: All our traditional achievement test falls in this category. The questions are set by paper setter according to his subjective judgment. There is no scientific and objective marketing scheme of the guidance of the market.

STANDARDIZED TEST: Test and scales that have met the criteria of testing are known as standardized test. Standardized means only that all students answer the same questions and a large number of questions under uniform directions, uniform time limits and there is a uniform or standard reference can be compared. It is based on content and objectives. Thus they have been used in a sufficiently large number of cases to make it possible to determine their validity, reliability, objectivity and administrability. CHARACTERISTICS OF STANDARDIZED TEST: According to Throndike, 1. A fixed set of test items, designed to measure clearly designed sample of behaviour 2. specific direction for administering and scoring test 3. Standard content and procedure. 4. standardized test norms provide a standard frame of reference for determining an individual level of performant on a particular test for comparing his level of performance on different test. TYPES OF STANDARDIZED TEST: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Achievement test Aptitude test Personality test Intelligent test Prognostic test

DEFINITION OF ATTITUDE: An attitude is a predisposition on read and write respond in a predetermined manner relevant stimuli. Whittakav

An attitude is a dispositional readiness to respond to certain institution, persons or objects in a consistent manner which has been learned and has become ones typical mode of response. An attitude has a well defined object of reference. Freeman

An attitude is often defined as a tendency to react favourable or unfavourably towards a designated class of stimuli, such as national or a racial group, a custom or an institution. SIGNIFICANCE OF ATTITUDE:  One of the primary objectives of education is the development of desirable attitude in the students.  It is obvious that it becomes essential to know to what extent the necessary attitude are developed and what is more needed in this regard.  Similarly attitudes towards society and vocations must be correctly formed. CHARACTERISTICS OF ATTITUDE:  It is a point of view, substantiated or otherwise true or false which one holds towards an idea, object or person.  It includes certain aspects of personality as interest, appreciation and social content  An attitude is learnt  An attitude is adopted  An attitude has aspects, such as direction, intensity generation or specificity. SIGNIFICANT SUB-PARTS OF ATTITUDE:               Attitude are learned Attitude have referents Attitude are social learning Attitude have readiness to respond Attitude are effective Attitude vary in intensity Attitude have a time dimension Attitude have a duration factor Attitude are complex Attitude are evaluation Attitude are inferred Attitude are adopted Attitude are formed due to the process of differentiation Some attitude are formed due to some shock tragedy. Anastasi

FEATURES OF ATTITUDE: y y y An attitude is responsible for one behaviour in a particular way we may have a positive or negative approach. An attitude is a predisposition or tendency to behave in a particular situation. Our behaviour is not only determined by our attitude but by other factors as well finally we may say, an attitude is a determining acquired tendency which prepares a person to behave in a certain way towards a specific objects, subject to the conditions that exist in the environment.

FORMATION OF ATTITUDE: According to Stagner,     The integration of experiences A different experiences some dramatic experiences Adoption of available attitude.

PURPOSE OF ATTITUDE TESTING: y y y y y To know the extent to which desirable attitude have been developed in the students To enable the students to develop desirable attitude. To help the teachers in good teaching To help teachers understand students To help students in their care plans

CHANGE OF ATTITUDE: Once attitude and beliefs have been formed they a tendency to persist or continue. It is therefore difficult to change the attitudes that have been established. In order to change attitude and belief we shoul, y y y Change perceptions by new experiences and factual knowledge Control emotions and motivational factors in early childhood when most of our daily attitude are formed. tap various formative agencies.

APPLIED ASPECTS OF ATTITUDE:  The nurse should try to understand patients attitude

 The nurse should try to find out the cause of the unfavourable attitude and should change them into favourable one, because favourable attitude help in treatment and recovery.  The nurse needs to develop and cultivate a professional attitude which will contribute to her being successful in her work. Kemph & Averil list the following attitude for a successful and efficient nurse.  Ambition to her task well  Confirmity which the rules and regulations of the profession for which she is preparing  Willingness to work and work effectively  Cheerfulness and optimism  Interest in the problems and difficulties of other people  Co-operativeness, industriousness, respect for opinion and judgement of others  interest in increasing knowledge underlying effective nursing care  determination to grow professionally  Maintenance of poise and self control in all professional situations  maintaining a consistent pride in their profession  ability to rise to the unexpected without panic  Determination to make the patient comfortable by paying attention to small details that mean so much to the patient swelling. MEASUREMENT OF ATTUTUDE: Measurement of attitude must include several dimension if it is to be useful. Direction There are negative or positive for against dimension. A student has positive or negative feelings about sports, school / college clubs, vocational classes and other school / college matters which constitute the direction of his attitude. Degree: There are amounts or degrees of liking and disliking attached to attitude. students may have different degrees of liking which can be measured on a continuum from moderate to strong to very strong. The idea of degree can be applied to the negative feeling towards an objects also.

Intensity: attitude also have dimensions of intensity or strength , at a high degree of intensity some given kind of behaviour is motivated .also the strength of one attitude compared to another may determine which one becomes the basis of action. TECHNIQUES OF MEASURING ATTITUDE: y y y y y y Attitude scale Error choice technique. Free response technique. Paired comparisons. Opinion polling or surveying. Simple techniques are anecdotal record , autobiographies, diaries, leisure time pursuits, impression, interview etc. ATTITUDE SCALES 1. THURSTONE TYPE SCALES:

Thurstone technique of scaling attitude test is known as the method of equal appearing interval. In this method, statements of both favourable and unfavourable, bearing on a particular topic, question or institution are obtained from a group of selected writers, other experts and layman. These statements are edited and then they are classified by a large number of judges on an eleven point scale. This is done by placing each statements in one of eleven piles, presumably forming a continuum unfavourableness of each item with respect to question at hand. the median of the judged location for statement is its scale value. Statements that are judged to be ambiguous or irrelevant to the continuum are eliminated. In taking an attitude test scales in this manner, the respondent checks those statements with which he agrees, his score being the median of the scale values of the items he has marked. Thurstone believed that scales constructed for different attitudes by this method permit direct comparison of the scores of any attitude so measured.

The validity of such comparison, however he has been questions because the defined neutral points of the different attitudes are not necessarily the same. the intervel only appear equal but are not demonstrably equal. The thrustone method is useful if strict comparability of scores is not assumed. LIKERT TYPE SCALE: In this scale , each item or statement is followed by five responses . one of which is checked by the subject . the responses usually expressed in terms of 5 categories. y y y y y strongly agree(SA) Agree(A) Undecided(U) Disagree (D) Strongly disagree(SD) -The individual statement are either clearly favourable or unfavourable. -To store the scale the alternative responses are credited 5,4,3,2,1, respectively from the favourable to the unfavourable end. -This method measures attitude only in the sense that individual are given a rank order accorting to attitude intensity. - The likert scaling procedure does not require the classification of items by a group of judges. -Items are selected solely on the basis of responses of subjects to whom they are administered in the course of developing the test.

STANDARDIZED SCALE: This is the another technique of testing attitude. The subject has to choose a items out of the given items according to his view is correct GUTTMAN TYPE SCALE / SCALOGRAM ANALYSIS: This was originally developing as a technique for determining whether a set of attitude statement is unidimensional. In this attitude scale items can be ordered along a continuum of intensity or difficulty of acceptance. Each person position on the scale that completely his/her responses. The essential procedures in the development of Guttman scale is to identify asset of items that fall into an ordered sequence in terms of their endorsement by response. The items that do not fit this requirement are discarded. A person score on the scale is found by examining the pattern of items that he / she endorses.

Merit of the Thurstone and the Likert type scale: It avoids the difficulties encountered when using the judging group to construct a scale. The construction of an attitude scale by the stigma method is much easier than by using a judging group to place the statements in pies from which the scale value must be calculated. It yields reliability as big as those obtained by other techniques with favour items. ERROR CHOICE TECHNIQUE: In this technique an achievement test is constructed. generally half the items are almost direct and the responses are almost rights. The answers to the rest of the items are not correct when the individual gives responses to those items, he shows partiality to one or the other side. Thsu an achievement test becomes a sort of projective test for testing attitude. FREE RESPONSE TECHNIQUE: Free response technique given by own individual to a question, problem / institution also reveals his attitude. Responses to those items give information about personal relations, personal social values, broad social feelings. In another free response technique, we can give complete stories about the attitude being tested and ask the students to complete them. We can know about the individual problems and attitude through the material given for the completion of the story. PAIRED COMPARISON: The subject is given paired comparison of nations exercise or other comparison related to an attitude. Each nation is shown in comparison with the other. The ratio is supposed to check a pair which he likes, from the scores we can know the status of his nation or his likes. OPINION POLLING / SURVEYING: It is said that opinion symbolizes an attitude. In this technique verbally expressed opinions are taken to be attitude. Here Yes No or Agree Disagree, type questions are asked. We can use this technique for testing opinions regarding current affairs. The questions should be simple and there should not be any doubt or ambiguity.

SOME SIMPLE TECHNIQUES: 1. Anecdotal records: Anecdote is said to be a word snapshot of significant pupil behaviour. The anecdotes can be collected by teachers, counselors, or other observer in the form of a record. Their later analysis can reveal significant information about the attitude of students, towards various objects, people and values. 2. Autobiographies: Autobiography is a creative writing experience semi structured or unstructured about ones self with emphasis an feeling and attitudes, the purpose of which is to help the student, teacher, counselor, pinpoint events in the students life and their relationship to his behaviour. 3. Diaries: A diary account of important events feelings and attitude written by students, also gives an insight into the attitude of students. 4. Leisure time pursuits: Records of the books or journals read the participation in various types of activities and programmes also give a lot of information about students attitude. 5. Impression It is based upon the observation of behaviour and attitude of the individual by teachers, counselors etc., this also reveals significant information about individual of course this is not a very reliable technique. 6. Interview: The attitude of the individual can be assessed by asking predetermined questions which can give linking into his attitude. PROBLEMS IN ATTITUDE TESTING:  Attitude is a complex affair which cannot be wholly described by any single numerical index  Peoples attitude are subject to change  It is also difficult to get valid responses  The scores of the individual generally concentrate in the middle  Discrepancies between verbally expressed attitude and overt behaviour have also been noted in a number of series  Every observation of overt behaviour may not always provide an accurate index of attitude.

LIMITATIONS OF ATTITUDE SCALE:  An individual may express socially acceptable opinion and conceal his real attitude  An individual himself may not clearly aware of his real attitude  Any individual may never have been confronted with a real situation to discover what his real attitude towards a scientific phenomena.  Attitude are revealed through the behaviour of the individual. But behaviour itself is not always a true indication of attitude  Observation of behaviour may not always be possible when a large sample is under study  Social customs or the desire for socialapproval may make mankinds of behaviour mere formalities which are quite unrelated to the inner feelings of an individual. OTHER TYPES OF ATTITUDE SCALE NOMINAL SCALE: 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 least restrictive of all the scales. Instances of nominal scales 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 suited. In a nominal scale numbers are nu more thal labels and are used specifically to identify different categories of responses. Mode is frequently used for responsive category. ORDINAL SCALE: These are simplest attitude measuring scale used in the marketing research. It is more powerful than the nominal scale in that the number possess the property of rank order. The ranking of certain products attributes / benefits as deemed important by the respondents is obtained through a scale. 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. Median and mode are meaningful for ordinal scale.

INTERVAL SCALE: Here in the distance between the various categories unlike in nominal or numbers unlike in ordinal, are equal in case of interval scales. These are also termed as rating scales. An interval scale has an arbitrary zero point with further numbers placed at equal intervals. Eg: Thermometer The data obtained from the interval scale can be used to calculate the mean scores of each attribute over all respondents. The standard deviation can also be calculated. RATIO SCALE: These are not widely used in the marketing research unless a base item is made available for comparison. A ratio scale has a natural zero point and further numbers are placed at equally appearing intervals. Eg: Height, Weight SEMANTIC DIFFERENTIAL SCALE: This is a seven point scale and the end points of the scale are associated with bipolar labels. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Pleasant dominant

Unpleasant submissive

Bipolar means two opposite extremes . Mena and median used for comparison. This scale helps to determine overall similarities and differences among objects. Individual can score from 1 to 7 or -3 to +3. On the basis of these responses profiles are made. We can analyze for two or three products and by joining these profiles we get profile analysis. When semantic differential scales is used to develop an image profile. It provides a god 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 to fast to administer, but it is also sensitive to small differences in attitude, highly versatile, reliable and generally valid. STAPLES SCALE: It was developed by Jan staple. This scale has some distinctive features,

y y y y

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

This scale is usually presented vertically. This is a unipolar rating scale. MULTI DIMENSIONAL SCALING: It consist of a group of analytical technique which are used to study consumer attitudes related to perceptions and preferences. It is used to study; y y y y y The major attributes of a given class of products perceived by the consumers in considering the product and by which they compare different ranks. To study which brand competes most directly with each other. To findout whether the consumers would like a new brand with a combination of characteristics not found in the market. What would be the consumers ideal combination of product attributes What scales and advertising messages are compatible with consumers brand perceptions It is a computer based techniques. The limitation of this scale is that it is difficult to clearly define the concept of similarities and preferences.

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

CRITICAL INCIDENCE TECHNIQUE INTRODUCTION: The critical incident technique is similar to anecdotal records in that information is recorded through observation of students performance.

DEFINITION: The critical incidence technique is a set of procedures used for collecting direct observations of human behaviour that critical significance and meet methodologically defined criteria. According to Fivers and Gosnell, the critical incident technique as one that makes a significant differences in the outcome of an activity. It may be the positive factors that contributes towards the cause of behaviour or it may be the negative factors that interfere with the completion of the assignment. AREAS OF CRTTICAL INCIDENT TECHNIQUE: It is a flexible method that usually relies on five major areas. The first is the determining and reviewing the incidence, then fact finding which involves collecting the details of the incident from the participants. When all of the facts are collected, the next step is to identify the issues. Afterwards a decision can be made on how to resolve the issues based on various possible solutions. The final and most important aspect is the evaluation, which will determine if the solution that was selected will solve the root cause of the situation and will cause no further problems. USE OF CRITICAL INCIDENT AS A TEACHING STRATEGY:  Flanagon (1954) He developed the critical incident technique as a method of gathering information about effective or ineffective behaviour performed by the airline pilots.  Flanagan, Gosnell, Fivars used it in order to develop categorization for assessing student nurse performance  Cormack (1983) The way in which he use the technique as a means of examining the role of the psychiatric nurse  Rinon (1979) Used it to elicit the nurses psychological role in caring for patients during rehabilitation

 Benner (1984) adapted its used to explore the shift from novice to expert practitioner through the identification of competencies of nurses at different levels of skill attainment  Clamp (1984) how the technique was used in the nursing education to increase students awareness of nurses attitude to patients and their levels of interpersonal communication skills  Oearmann and Reilly (1992) Note that anecdotal notes and critical incident differs. CRITICAL INCIDENT RECORDS: To evaluate the performance, the evaluator records specific critical incident of effective and ineffective behaviour two sides or aspects of performance record Effective behaviour: (Positive behaviour)     contributing to patient care service Completion of an assignments / achieving of an objective maintenance of quality in nursing care of the patient eg. Anticipated need of the patients.

Ineffective behaviour: (Negative behaviour)   which interfere with good nursing carrier or leads to poor nursing care eg. Failed to organize nursing care for maximum patient benefit.

Critical incident are outstanding happening which indicate the presence or absence of the quality / characteristics or behaviour pattern to be analysed. An incident will be considered critical when it occurs in a situation, where the purpose or intent of the seems fairly clear to the observer. An analysis of incident helps in breaking down broad statement of objectives into specific components needed for evaluation. CRITERIA FOR USING CRITICAL INCIDENT:  Observer has to observe actual behaviour and must be reported  All the relevant factors in the incident must be given  Definite judgement about the behaviour that is considered to be critical

HOW TO RECORD THE CRITICAL INCIDENT:  Total period of observation has to be written on the form  Number of incidents, effective and ineffective behaviour has to be recorded  Space for signature of the evaluator and the person who is being evaluated should be provided.

ADVANTAGES:         Flexible method that can be used in the multi user system data is collected from the respondents perspective and in his/her own words does not force the respondents into any given framework Identifies even rare events that might be missed by other methods which only focus on common and everyday events useful when problem occur but the cause and severity are not known Inexpensive and provides more information Empahsises the features that will make a system particularly vulnerable and can bring major benefits Can be applied using questionnaires or interviews.

DISADVANTAGES:  A first problem comes from the type of reported incidents. The critical incident technique will relay on the events being remembered by users and will also require the accurate and truthful reporting of them. Since critical incidents often relay on memory, incidents may be imprecise or may even go unreported  The method has a built in bias towards incidents that happened recently, since these are easier to recall. CONCLUSION: The critical incident technique is effective for formative evaluation. It enables the learner and the teacher to their impact on the outcome of an action. It can also be used in a summative evaluation, provided several critical incident are used to judge the students mastery of behaviour under consideration.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: y y y y y Bhatia &Bhatia (2006)A text book of educational psychology published by doaba house , Delhi , Page No: 561-569. Boring ,Langfeld ,weld ,foundations of psychology published by Asia publishing house, Bombay, Page no 560-588. Cliford .T. Morgon (1999) Introduction to Psychology7th edition ,published by Tata Mc Graco hill Publishing company limited .Newdelhi. Page no 384-390. Kamala Bhatia (2000) The principles and methods of teaching published by doaba house,Delhi, Page no 440. B.N. Panda (1999) Advanced educational Psychology published by Discovery publishing house, Newdelhi.page.no 109.