Scale Construction Decisions
- What level of data is involved (nominal, ordinal, interval, or ratio)?
- What will the results be used for?
- Should you use a scale, index, or typology?
- What types of statistical analysis would be useful?
- Should you use a comparative scale or a noncomparative scale?
- How many scale divisions or categories should be used (1 to 10; 1 to 7; −3 to +3)?
- Should there be an odd or even number of divisions? (Odd gives neutral center value; even forces respondents to take a non-neutral position.)
- What should the nature and descriptiveness of the scale labels be?
- What should the physical form or layout of the scale be? (graphic, simple linear, vertical, horizontal)
- Should a response be forced or be left optional?
Read more about this topic: Scale (social Sciences)
Famous quotes containing the words scale, construction and/or decisions:
“I have spent all my life under a Communist regime, and I will tell you that a society without any objective legal scale is a terrible one indeed. But a society with no other scale but the legal one is not quite worthy of man either.”
—Alexander Solzhenitsyn (b. 1918)
“When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)
“The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions ... but by iron and blood.”
—Otto Von Bismarck (1815–1898)