Research 101: Measurements of Constructs

1. Research 101: Measurement of constructs
Harold Gamero

2. Measurement of constructs
• To test theories, it is necessary to be able to measure the constructs of interest in a
precise, correct and scientific manner.
• Some constructs can be easily measured (e.g. age, gender, firm size).
• Others may be considerably more difficult to measure (e.g., creativity, personality,
alienation, etc.).

3. Conceptualization
Definition
It is the process by which a construct (imprecise and unclear) and its components are
precisely and concretely defined.
• For this process it is necessary to understand which elements are included or
excluded in the concept.
• This process is the most important due to the imprecision, vagueness and ambiguity
of social science constructs.
• These definitions will not be based on an objective criterion, but on the shared
agreement of the mental image that is conceptualized.

4. Conceptualization
• Sometimes, the constructs used are not real or do not exist independently but are
imaginary creations (e.g. prejudice).
• According to their complexity, constructs can be:
vs.
• Constructs that have a single underlying
dimension or component.
• They can be measured using a single
scale or test.
• e.g. purchase intentions, self-esteem,
age,
• Constructs that have two or more
underlying dimensions.
• Each of the dimensions must be
measured separately
• e.g. personality, culture, service quality.
One-dimensional Multidimensional

5. Operationalization
Definition
Process in which indicators or items are developed to measure a construct.
• Due to the high degree of subjectivity, constructs are often measured using multiple
indicators.
• Multiple indicators allow us to calculate the degree of reliability of a scale.
• These indicators operate at the empirical level.
• A variable is the combination of indicators that represent a construct.
• Each indicator usually has several attributes (response categories), where each attribute
represents a value.
• These values can be quantitative (numerical) or qualitative (non-numerical).

6. Operationalization
• There are two types of indicators
vs.
• They measure the reflection of the
presence of a construct.
• They measure the construct directly
• They measure one-dimensional
constructs.
Example:
Construct: "Religiosity" as degree of religious
involvement.
Reflective indicator: Number of times the person
goes to mass.
• The items conform to the construct being
measured.
• They measure the construct indirectly
• They measure multidimensional
constructs.
Example:
Construct: "Religiosity" as a composite of: a)
religious belief; b) devotion; and c) presence in
rites.
Formative indicators: Each of the items of the 3
scales.
Reflective Formative

7. Measurement levels
• According to Smith Stevens (1946), there are 4 generic levels of measurement:
Nominal: Also called categorical. Measures mutually exclusive attributes that
have no hierarchy. Qualitative.
Ordinal: Measures data ordered by ranges but whose values cannot be
quantified. Qualitative.
Intervals: Measure data ordered by ranges and whose ranges are equidistant
from each other. Quantitative.
Reason: All of the above qualities and, in addition, with a real zero value (implying
the absence of the variable).
_
+

8. Measurement levels
• Statistical properties of measurement scales:
Scale Example Central tendency Statistics
Nominal
Sex, profession, type of industry,
religion
Mode Chi-square
Ordinal
Ranking of positions, education
level, Likert scales
Median
Percentiles, nonparametric
statistics
Interval IQ, final average, degrees Celsius
Arithmetic mean, range, standard
deviation
Correlations, regressions, analysis
of variance
Reason
Age, number of workers, monthly
income, degrees Kelvin
Geometric mean, harmonic mean Coefficients of co-variation
Note: All higher-ranked scales can use the statistics of the lower-ranked scales.

9. Scoring scales
• Based on the 4 levels of measurement, specific scales have been created for the recording
of assessments.
• The most used are:
a) Binary scales
b) Likert scales
c) Semantic differential scales
d) Guttman scales

10. Scoring scales
a) Binary scales
• Nominal scales, with two response categories.
e.g. Political activism scale:
Have you ever written a letter to a public official? Yes No
Have you ever signed a political petition? Yes No
Have you ever donated money to political causes? Yes No
Have you ever donated money to a candidate's political campaign? Yes No
Have you ever written a political letter to the editor of a newspaper or magazine? Yes No
Have you ever persuaded someone to change their voting intention? Yes No

11. Scoring scales
b) Likert scales
• Designed by Rensis Likert.
• These are simple statements to which the respondent answers according to his or her
degree of agreement or disagreement, on a scale of 5 or 7 points.
• Although some researchers tend to eliminate the neutral point, this is a practice not
recommended in scientific research.
• Likert scales are ordinal in that they are not necessarily equidistant.

12. Scoring scales
b) Likert scales
e.g. Work Self-Esteem Scale
Completely
disagree
Somewhat
at
odds
Neutral
Somewhat
in
agreement
Completely
agree
I feel good about my job O O O O O
I get along well with other people in my job O O O O O
I am proud of the relationship I have with my supervisor. O O O O O
I can tell other people that they are happy to have me at work. O O O O O
I can say that my colleagues respect me O O O O O
I feel that I make useful contributions to my work O O O O O

13. Scoring scales
c) Semantic differential scales
• Multi-item scale where a single statement has several response alternatives with opposite
characteristics.
• While in Likert the statements change and the alternatives are the same, in DS the
statement remains constant, and the alternatives change.
• These scales are the most appropriate for measuring attitudes and feelings.

14. Scoring scales
c) Semantic differential scales
e.g. Scale on attitude towards the public health care system
How would you rate the public health care system?
Much Something None Something Much
Good O O O O O Malo
Useful O O O O O useless
Insurance O O O O O Insecure
Reliable O O O O O Risky

15. Scoring scales
d) Guttman scales
• Designed by Louis Guttman.
• It uses a series of items arranged in an order of increasing intensity.
• The final score is the weighted sum of the responses (in ascending order).

16. Scoring scales
d) Guttman scales
e.g. Scale of attitude towards immigrants
Answer the following questions based on your opinion towards immigrants
Would you mind if there were immigrants as citizens of your country? Yes No
Would you mind if there were immigrants living in your neighbourhood? Yes No
Would you mind if an immigrant is your neighbour? Yes No
Would you mind having an immigrant as your friend? Yes No
Would you mind if a member of your family marries an immigrant? Yes No

17. Scaling
Definition
Association between qualitative judgments about an unobservable construct and measurable
and quantitative metric units.
• From this association the "measurement scales" are created.
• These scales are empirical structures designed to measure indicators of a given construct.
• It is not enough to add punctuation scales to certain statements.
• First and foremost is the development of these statements.

18. Scaling
• Like constructs, measurement scales can be:
vs.
• They measure constructs with a single
scale.
• This scale may have several items, but
all of them measuring the same
construct.
• They measure each dimension of the
construct separately.
• The scores for each dimension can be
combined to obtain a total score for the
construct.
• The scale of each dimension can have
multiple items.
One-dimensional Multidimensional

19. Scaling
How to create measurement scales?
• Currently there are measurement scales for many of the constructs included in social science
research.
• Other scales can be modified, translated or adapted, as long as this does not alter their validity.
• The best-known methods for creating measurement scales are:
a) Thurstone's uniform appearance scaling method
b) Likert additive scaling method
c) Guttman cumulative scaling method
Each of these are explained in detail in the book.

20. Indexes
Definition
They are scores that are composed of multiple constructs (called components) through rules
and formulas.
• The creation of indices is very similar to the process of measuring constructs:
1) Conceptualization of the index and its components.
2) Operationalization and measurement of each component.
3) Creation of a formula or rule to calculate the index value.
e.g. CPI, NSE, Happy Planet Index

21. Typologies
• While indexes are naturally quantitative, typologies are qualitative.
• They are composed of a set of constructs, but the final values are nominal categories.
e.g. Types of leadership

22. Thank you.
Harold Gamero