Introduction

Social attitudes are measured by using attitude scale Questionnaires are prepared and the items in the questionnaire is the attitude of an individual towards a matter Score will be allotted for each item

Types of attitude scale

Select the words which will give the opinion Respondent has to cross out the word which is annoying to him Attitude of the respondent is known by calculating the number of words not crossed Example: opinion about the flower in your hand

It looks It smells Its colour

Beautiful Good Bright

Not beautiful Not good Dull

 This scale is developed by using consensus scale approach In this approach the items are selected by a panel of judges

Procedure
Researcher gathers a large number of statements (20 or more) Statements are submitted to a panel of judges The judges will arrange the statements in 11 groups ranging from one extreme to another Each of the judges are requested to place the statements which he thinks most unfavorable to the issue in the 1st group and next most unfavorable in the second group and he goes on doing this in the manner till in the 11th group he put the statement which he considers most favorable This sorting by each judge yields a position for each of the item The disagreed item is discarded The items which are retained is given its value between 1 and 11 A final selection of the statement is made and it will constitute the final scale

Advantages
Measures the attitude towards the issues like war, religion etc

Disadvantages
Reliable in measuring single attitude Requires cost and effort Values assigned to statement by judges may reflect their own attitude

 Consists of a number of statements which express either favorable or unfavorable attitude towards the given object Respondent indicates his agreement or disagreement with each statement in the instrument Each response is given a numerical score and the scores are total to measure the respondents attitude In Likert scale a 5 degrees of agreement or disagreement are used Example: when asked to express opinion when one considers his job quit pleasant the respondent may response any one of the following

Strongly agree
5

Agree
4

Undecided
3

disagree
2

Strongly disagree
1

At one extreme of the scale there is strong agreement and the other extreme is strong disagreement and in-between it is the neutral point If the instrument consists of 30 statement the score values are
30 X 5 = 150 30 X 3 = 90 30 X 1 = 30

The score of an individual may fall between 30 and 150, if the score is above 90 which shows favorable opinion and below 90 which shows unfavorable opinion and the score is 90 which means neutral attitude