• Measurement and scaling Concepts

• Scales development
• In Class activity for instrument development
• Questionnaire Design
• In Class Activity

Dr. Ubedullah Khoso

Research Concepts, Constructs, Variables,
and Hypotheses/is
• Concept (or construct)
• Concepts are the building blocks of theory.
• A generalized idea about a class of objects, attributes, occurrences or process
that has been given a name.
• Examples:
• leadership
• morale
• gross domestic product
• assets
• customer satisfaction
• market share
Research Concepts, Constructs, Variables,
and Hypotheses/is
• Concept (or construct)
• Concepts are the abstract reality
• Concepts may vary in degree of abstraction.
• I.e., Asset!
Research Concepts, Constructs, Variables,
and Hypotheses/is
• Ladder of Abstraction
• Organization of concepts in sequence from the most concrete and individual to
the most general.
• Abstract Level
• The level of knowledge expressing a concept that exists only as an idea or a
quality apart from an object.
• Empirical Level
• The level of knowledge that is verifiable by experience or observation.
• we “experience”, we observe, measure, or manipulate objects or events.
• Latent Construct
• A concept that is not directly observable or measurable, but can be estimated
through proxy measures (i.e., empirical measures/items, etc. )
Research Concepts, Constructs, Variables,
and Hypotheses/is
Research Concepts, Constructs, Variables,
and Hypotheses/is

“Older workers prefer

different rewards than
younger workers,”
 Hypotheses

Hypothesis/es
• Formal statement of an unproven proposition that is empirically testable.
• Example: Giving employees one Friday off each month will result in lower employee
turnover.
• There is a positive correlation between the number of hours students study and their test
scores.
Variables
• Independent Variable: a variable that is manipulated by the marketer
to observe its effect on the dependent variable. For example, a
marketer may change the price of a product to see how it affects sales.

• Dependent Variable: a variable that is measured to determine the

effect of the independent variable. For example, in the above example,
the dependent variable would be sales.
Variables
• Mediating Variable: a variable that explains the relationship between
the independent and dependent variables. For example, in the above
example, the mediating variable might be the perceived value of the
product.

• Moderating Variable: a variable that affects the strength or direction

of the relationship between the independent and dependent variables.
For example, the moderating variable might be the type of customer
being targeted
Example 1
• Research question: Does social
media advertising have a significant
impact on purchase intention among Attitude
millennials? towards
brand

1. H1: Social media advertising has a positive

effect on attitude towards the brand. Social media Purchase
Ad Intention
2. H2: Attitude towards the brand has a
positive effect on purchase intention.
3. H3: The effect of social media advertising
on purchase intention is partially mediated Age (millennials vs non-
by attitude towards the brand. millennials)
4. H4: The relationship between social media
advertising and attitude towards the brand is
stronger among millennials compared to
non-millennials.
 Example 2
• Research question: How does
product packaging design affect
consumer purchasing behavior?
Brand image
1. H1: Attractive product packaging design
positively affects brand image.
2. H2:Brand image positively affects Product Consumer
consumer purchasing behavior.. packaging purchasing
3. H3: Brand image mediates the relationship design behavior
between product packaging design and
consumer purchasing behavior.
4. H4: The effect of product packaging Age
design on brand image is stronger among
younger consumers compared to older
consumers.
The main preoccupations of quantitative
researchers
1. Measurement

2. Causality

3. Generalization

4. Replication
1. Measurement

• Can a concept be quantified?

• Comparisons between measures

• Variation in a variable
2. Causality
• Explanation
• why things are the way they are

• Direction of causal influence

• relationship between dependent & independent variables

• Confidence
• in the researcher's causal inferences
Impact or Category…?
3. Generalization

• Can findings be generalized from sample to

population?
• How representative are samples?
Generalization (ability)
4. Replication
• Detailed description of procedures allows other researchers to replicate study
• Low incidence of published replications
Experimental
research
Experimental Research: An overview.
• Experimental research is a type of quantitative research that aims to
establish cause-and-effect relationships between variables.

• It is a powerful tool for businesses to test new ideas, evaluate the

effectiveness of marketing campaigns, and identify the best ways to
improve their products and services.
Experimental Research: An overview.
• Experiment: Business experiments are carefully controlled studies in
which the researcher manipulates a proposed cause and observes any
corresponding change in the proposed effect.
• Experiment Variable: The proposed cause is called the experimental
variable.
• Manipulation: The researcher manipulates the experimental variable
by changing its level in specific increments.
Condition 3
Condition 4
Condition 5
Condition 6
Measurement & Scaling
What is you understanding of measurement?
Comparative scales
• Comparative scales involve the direct comparison of stimulus objects.
For example, respondents might be asked whether they prefer Coke or
Pepsi.
• Comparative scale data must be interpreted in relative terms and have
only ordinal or rank order properties.
Comparative scales: Paired Comparison
Scaling
• A respondent is presented with two objects at a time and asked to
select one object in the pair according to some criterion. The data
obtained are ordinal in nature.
• The most common method of taste testing is paired comparison.
Comparative scales: Paired Comparison
Scaling
• Which cola drink would be the most popular among your friends in a
taste test?
• Develop a script for testing for preference between two cola drinks:
Coke and Pepsi. Make sure the drinks are chilled to the same
temperature and poured into three groups of identical cups. Each
person will select a cup from the first group, taste the cola, eat a
cracker, and take a swallow of water. Repeat this when tasting from
the second and third groups. (The first group might be Pepsi, the
second group Coke, and the third group Pepsi.). After tasting from
each of the three cola sample groups, have the respondents complete
the survey form you created.
Comparative scales: Rank Order Scaling
• Respondents are presented with several objects simultaneously and
asked to order or rank them according to some criterion.

• For example, respondents may be asked to rank brands of toothpaste

according to overall preference.
Comparative scales: Constant sum scaling
• Respondents allocate a constant sum of units, such as points, dollars,
or
chips, among a set of stimulus objects with respect to some criterion.
Comparative scales: Q-sort scaling
• Q-sort scaling was developed to discriminate quickly among a
relatively large number of objects.
• For example: A company wants to identify the most important factors
that influence customers' purchase decisions. They could present a set
of statements related to product features, pricing, brand reputation, and
other factors, and ask respondents to sort them into categories based
on their relative importance.
Non-comparative scales
• Stimulus object is scaled independently of the other objects in the
stimulus set.
Non-comparative scales: Continuous rating
scale
• Also referred to as a graphic rating scale, this measurement scale has
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 the other.
Non-comparative scales: Likert scale
• Named after its developer, Rensis Likert, the Likert scale is a widely
used rating scale that requires the respondents to indicate the degree of
agreement or disagreement with each of a series of statements about
the stimulus objects.
• Typically, each scale item has five to seven response categories,
ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.”
Non-comparative scales: Likert scale
• Named after its developer, Rensis Likert, the Likert scale is a widely
used rating scale that requires the respondents to indicate the degree of
agreement or disagreement with each of a series of statements about
the stimulus objects.
• Typically, each scale item has five to seven response categories,
ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.”
Non-comparative scales: Sematic
differential
• A measure that uses bipolar adjectives o anchor the begging and the end of each scale.
• People use both, 1,2,3….7 or -3,-2,-1,0,1,2,3 schemes to measure numeric score of
semantic differential scales.

• Attitude towards a brand: This scale measures the respondent's attitude towards a
brand by asking them to rate it on a set of bipolar adjectives such as "sophisticated"
versus "unsophisticated", "exciting" versus "boring", "innovative" versus
"conventional".
• Assessment of a product: This scale measures the respondent's assessment of a
product by asking them to rate it on a set of bipolar adjectives such as "high quality"
versus "low quality", "useful" versus "useless", "attractive" versus "unattractive".
Brand personality or concept
Non-comparative scales: Stapel scale
• The Stapel scale, named after its developer, Jan Stapel, is a unipolar
rating scale with 10 categories numbered from -5 to +5, without a
neutral point
Non-comparative scales: Semantic differential
• A measure of attitudes that consist of series of 3-, 5-, or 7-point rating scale that use bipolar
adjectives o anchor the begging and the end of each scale.
• Attitude towards a brand: This scale measures the respondent's attitude towards a brand by
asking them to rate it on a set of bipolar adjectives such as "sophisticated" versus
"unsophisticated", "exciting" versus "boring", "innovative" versus "conventional".

• Assessment of a product: This scale measures the respondent's assessment of a product by asking
them to rate it on a set of bipolar adjectives such as "high quality" versus "low quality", "useful"
versus "useless", "attractive" versus "unattractive".
Attitudes
• Attitudes are hypothetical or latent or simple called constructs.
• They are called latent or hypothetical because they can not be
observed/measured directly. Examples of common latent constructs are job
satisfaction, personal values, feeling and perceived value.
• Thus, we measure attitudes by inferring it from individual response
(agree/disagree) to a set of statements about an object(person /product/brand
or place etc.).
• Measuring attitude of a company stakeholder should be a permeant process.
Attitude rating scales
1. Simple attitude scales:
Usually asked through a single statement, with a binominal option to respond, such as yes or no,
agree or disagree, present or absent. Thus, the data produced through such measure allow for
very limited option of statistical analysis.
2. Category scales:
Most scientist believe that attitudes exist on a continuum. The simple scale does not offer to
measure response on a continuum. Thus, category scales solve this problem by offering categories
of responses on a continuum. Such as, never, rarely, sometimes, often and very often.
They provide a more sensitive level of measurement as compared to simple scales. However, they
can not be used to measure attitudes that are more likely to be bipolar.
Measuring behavioral intentions
• Behavioral intentions is the subset of an attitude. Intentions are measured as a proxy of actual
behavior.
• Therefore, like other component of attitudes (cognition and affect) behavioral intentions can
be measured using same techniques we have discussed earlier. Such as Likert scale, Semantic
differential scale ( we call it behavioral differential now), paired comparison or sorting (air
line example).
• The most used methods are Likert or semantic differential scales.
The impact of service quality of nursing staff on the consumer
behaviour: An investigation of emergency services at hospital

Revisit
Intention

SERVQUA Attitude
L Towards
hospital

Satisfaction