Business Research

Management
Unit – 3
Topic : Techniques of developing scales (Scaling)
By Jacqueline
Under Guidance of :
Mr. Himanshu Matre
 Scaling

The process of growing exponentially and

getting a maximum profit with more or less
the same investments.
Scaling is when revenue increases without a
substantial increase in resources.
 Scaling techniques
Scaling techniques are levels of
measurements that are used by
businesses to assess customer
satisfaction, preferences and other
aspects of the sales process.
Organizations use polls, surveys,
and questionnaires to conduct
market research in order to
determine how customers feel
about their product or service.
There are two ways of scaling

 Comparative : Making a judgement about some characteristics

of an individual and then placing it directly on a scale that has
been defined in terms of that characteristics.
 Non-Comparative : Constructing questionnaires in such a way
that the score of individual’s responses assigns him a place on a
scale.

It can be said that scaling is an applied procedure for attempting to

determine quantitative measures of abstract concepts.
 Important
techniques of
measurement

Rating scale Ranking Scale Categorization Sorting

 Rating Scale : This type of scale is one of the most commonly used questionnaire
types for online and offline surveys. It consists of close-ended questions along with a
set of categories as options for respondents.

There are different rating scales :

• Simple Attitude Scale : Most basic form of attitude scaling and offers two mutually
exclusive response choices.

For example : “ Yes” or “No’ , “Agree” or Diagree”

• Likert Scales or
Summated ratings
method :
Developed by Rensis Likert.
It consists of a series of statement
where the respondent provides
answers in the form of degree of
agreement or disagreement.
Individual respondents are generally
required to choose from five
alternatives, but the number of
alternatives may range from 3 to 9.
• Semantic Differential Scales : Developed by Charles Osgood and others.
It is a measurement scale designed to measure a person's subjective perception of, and
affective reactions to, the properties of concepts, objects, and events. It can be assumed to be
relatively reliable, valid.

Respondents are asked to choose where their position lies, on a set of scales with polar
adjectives
• Numerical Scales : A numeric rating scale question asks survey participants to
measure preferences, feelings, perceptions, and interests on a provided numerical scale.
The scale is an ordered-number scale with a range determined by the researcher to
represent the extremes of the value being measured.
• Multiple Rating List Scale : It is similar to the numerical scale but differs in two ways :

i. It accepts a circled response from the rater.

ii. The layout facilitates visualization of the results.
• Stapel Scales : Jan Staple developed it and it is presented vertically with an
adjective in the middle and five data points above and five data points below.
It is a slight modification of Semantic differential Scale.
• Constant Sum Scales : A technique that is used in market research surveys where
respondents are required to allocate a constant sum of points or units on specified
criteria or features. All these points add up to a constant total, which remains
unchanged.
• Graphic Rating Scales : A performance appraisal method to evaluate employee
engagement, performance & productivity-related criteria. Respondents can choose a
particular option on a line or scale to show how they feel about something. A graphic
rating scale shows the answer choices on a scale of 1-3, 1-5, etc.
• Thurstone Scale : Developed by Louis Thurstone.
Allow them to give multiple answers by assigning each item on the list a score (usually 1-
11). This allows researchers to get more detailed results from their surveys.
 Ranking Scales : A ranking scale forces respondents to rank a list of items with only
one selection in each rank. Ranking scale questions often ask respondents to rank based
on preference, but you can get creative with your ranking criteria.

There are three types of ranking scales :

 Simple Ranking : Respondents rank choices as 1,2,3 …..
 Paired Comparison Scale : Presents the respondent with two choices and calls for a
preference. The number of decisions can be calculated by the formula N(N-1)/2, where
N represents the total number of employees being evaluated.
Rank Order Scale : A Rank Order scale gives the respondent a set of items and asks them to put the items in
some form of order. The measure of 'order' can include such as preference, importance, liking, effectiveness and so
on.

Category Scales : It is an improvement over those rating scales which have only two
response categories like Agree, Disagree or Yes, No….The rating task becomes more flexible if
the respondent is provided with more responses. Much more information is provided if the
categories are ordered according to a descriptive or evaluative dimensions.

Some more categories for Category Scales :

a. On the basis of satisfaction
b. On the basis of Importance
c. On the basis of Truth
d. On the basis of Interest
e. On the basis of Quality
Sorting : When the number of objects or characteristics to be rated is very large in
number, it becomes difficult and tedious for respondents to rank order. In such cases,
sorting is used. Here, respondents are asked to sort out various characteristics or objects
that are being compared into various groups so that the distribution of the number of
objects or characteristics in each group follows a normal patter. The disadvantages of this
process is that it requires a lot of time and effort on the part of respondents .