A study of developing a thurstone type attitude scale. Nov 28, 2018 an example of a scale of the likert type is the minnesota personality scale for men, which presents such items as on the whole lawyers are honest and education only makes a person discontented. Of the many different types of attitude scales that have been. First, the use of a thurstone scale increases accuracy of the new attitudes instrument by weighting individual questions. An attitude scale is designed to provide a valid, or accurate measure of an individuals social attitude. Validity issues in the likert and thurstone approaches to attitude measurement article pdf available in educational and psychological measurement 592. Thurstone 38 refers to them as irrele vant or ambiguous. It was developed by louis leon thurstone in 1928, as a means of measuring attitudes towards religion. The instrument is a means for assessing young peoples risk profile regarding the use of alcohol and identifying the factors that contribute to determining this attitude. This is the main idea of the present scale construction. Attitude scales related to mathematics include those for mathematics anxiety, attitudes toward mathematics, and teacher attitudes. Types of attitude scales in research helping research. Thorndike and thurstone represent a traditional psychometric approach to. How to use a thurstone scale survey to measure attitudes.
The likert scales usually results in coefficients with higher reliability and with fewer items than the thurston scales. A set of judges are then asked to score how positive or negative each statement is, generally on a 9 or 11point rating scale. When we average the scale items for the statements with which the respondent agreed we get an average score of 2. Attitudes can be measured american journal of sociology. Document resume ed 359 201 tm 019 326 author dwyer, evelyn e. Thurstone scale is more formal in nature than likert scale. The other thurstone scaling methods are similar to the method of equalappearing intervals.
Basically it is used to assess the attitude of people regarding any social phenomena. Likert scale was devised in order to measure attitude in a scientifically accepted and validated manner in 1932 6,7. Reliability and consistency of rejection and acceptance. The base line represents ideally the whole range of opinions from those at one end who are most strongly in favor of the issue to those at the other end of the scale who are as strongly against it. Thurstones method of constructing and scoring attitude scales. The thurstone scale is made up of statements about a particular. It requires more time to construct, administer, and score than a likert scale. Creating the scale calculate the median value find lower quartile, the upper quartile, and the interquartile range, and average determine values of 1 to 11 median. Graded or binary disagreeagree responses to attitude statements are often collected for the purpose of.
It is made up of statements about a particular issue, and each statement has a numerical value indicating how favorable or unfavorable it is judged to be. Employing modified thurstone techniques, two equivalent forms of an equalappearing intervals attitude scale were constructed around the topic physical fitness. By these aspects the present study is expected to contribute to the work of scaling. Thurstone scale is defined as a unidimensional scale that is used to track respondents behavior, attitude or feeling towards a subject only with the use of agree or disagree questions. A simple and reliable method of scoring the thurstone attitude scales. Logframer allows you to use a thurstone scale to measure an indicator, but developing such a scale is not so simple. These procedures were among the earliest systematic methods devised to measure attitudes. The thurstone scale is more laborious and timeconsuming than the likert scale in the method of scoring, summating, and validating the responses. Although there are technically three scales, when people refer to the thurstone scale theyre usually talking about. A simple method of scoring the thurstone attitude scales is presented, which does not involve the use of a judging group and yet is found in several samples to be consistently more reliable than.
Nonetheless, thurstone scaling is still in use as an attitude. Thurstone scale, likert scale and semantic differential. Download pdf show page numbers from the perspective of a person whose attitudes, behaviors, or knowledge are being assessed with a survey of some sort, an attitude scale might seem little more than a series of questions or statements stimuli to be answered. When having the judges rate each of the 37 statements, it is important to have them rate the favorableness or unfavorableness ofeach. It is made up of statements about a particular issue, and each statement has a numerical value indicating how favorable or unfavorable it is. According to edmondson 2005 the ideas of likert scale was expanded in the article titled, a simple and reliable method of scoring the thurstone attitude scales published in. The thurstone scale is made up of statements about a particular issue and each statement has a numerical value indicating the repsondents attitude about the issue, either favorable or unfavorable.
A thurstone scale has a number of agree or disagree statements. Comparative validity of the likert and thurstone approaches to. Thurstone, 1928 is generally more consistent with empirical characteristics of disagreeagree responses, and because of this superior consistency, thurstone attitude scores do not suffer from this type of degraded validity. The scale is so constructed that two opinions separated by a unit distance on the base line seem to differ as much in the attitude variable involved as any other two opinions on the scale which are also separated by a unit distance. Dec, 2015 an attitude scale, is a tool prepared for the purpose of measuring peoples attitude to an issue is called attitude scale. Jul 14, 2016 introduction it is also known as thrustone scale or equal appearing interval scales. By noting his agreement or disagreement with each statement, the subject reveals the nature and relative strength of his attitudes on the subject in question. Louis leon thurstone 29 may 1887 30 september 1955 was a u.
Thurstone scale method of equalappearing intervals. The development of the paramedic as a health care professional and the movement of paramedic education into the higher education setting has resulted in. A statement which is undifferentiating for a scale measuring one attitude. Types of scales and measures bijay lal pradhan, ph. However, as anyone who has every faked an attitude scales knows there are shortcomings in these self report scales of attitudes. Document resume ed 426 085 thurstones method of equal. In psychology and sociology, the thurstone scale was the first formal technique to measure an attitude. The thurstone scales measure attitudes on about thirty subjects, including capital punishment, censorship, communism, negroes, patriotism, chinese, and the church. It is quite appropriate to say that louis leon thurstone was to psychology of the first half of the twentieth. The purpose of this study was to develop a thurstone type math attitude scale and to compare thurstone type, and likerttype scales in terms of some psychometric properties. People indicate which of the statements with which they agree and the average response is computed. A type of attitude scale constructed by the method of equalappearing intervals, in which a large pool of candidate statements about an attitude object, ranging from strongly negative abortion is never justified through neutral there are arguments both for and against abortion to strongly positive abortion is every womans right, are sorted by a group of judges into eleven categories. It measures the intensity of the attitude which likert scale could not do.
A mead project source page originally published as. Thurstone scales are a set of procedures used to construct attitude scales. The thurstone scale is built upon the fundamentals of the likert scale, but this method of constructing an attitude scale not only takes value of each item of into. The object of this study is to devise a method whereby the distribution of attitude of a group on a specified issue may be represented in the form of a frequency distribution. He is also known for the development of the thurstone scale.
The minnesota teacher attitude survey also uses this technique. It is the purpose of this paper to describe a new psychophysical method for measuring the psychological or functional similarity of attributes. A read is counted each time someone views a publication summary such as the title, abstract, and list of authors, clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the fulltext. A type of attitude scale constructed by the method of equalappearing intervals, in which a large pool of candidate statements about an attitude object, ranging from strongly negative abortion is never justified through neutral there are arguments both for and against abortion to strongly positive abortion. The rating scale chosen for this instrument was a 1to7 scale with the anchors being extremely favorable attitude towards stealing and extremely unfavorable attitude towards stealing, respectively. Thurstone scales, likert scales, guttman scales, and semantic differential scales. Thurstone scale was the first formal technique used to measure attitudes. This kind of scale is used to measure peoples attitude towards a fairly clear and unidimensional concept, using a number of statements that vary in how they express a positive. Well walk through each step towards incorporating it and interpreting its results. A psychophysical method and some experiments with a scale for measuring attitude toward the church. One of the earli est examples of the bipolar scale in psychological research is the thurstone scale. Guilford on september 19, 1955, one of the worlds greatest psychologists passed from the scene. By undifferentiating we merely mean that the statement does not mea sure what the battery measures and hence. Learn more about the steps to implement the thurstone scale survey questions with examples.
A comparison of their methods of scaling psychological and educational tests george engelhard, jr. In contrast, the thurstone attitude measurement procedure is generally more consistent with empirical characteristics of disagreeagree responses, and because of this superior consistency, thurstone attitude scores do not suffer from this type of degraded validity. The attitude of judges can also impacts the position of items on the scale. Feb 19, 2019 a thurstone scale has a number of agree or disagree statements. He conceived the approach to measurement known as the law of comparative judgment, and is well known for his contributions to factor analysis. An attitude scale is designed to provide a valid, or accurate, measure of an individuals social attitude. Scale for the measurement of attitudes towards alcohol. This, in turn, helps you forecast their behaviors and preferences. Several strengths of the new lifestyle attitude scale should be highlighted. Guttman scale is one of the three unidimensional scales, the other two being likert scale and thurstone scale. By giving individual questions a weight, a finer level of detail is revealed regarding subjects attitudes. Each scale item has a scale value associated with it obtained from the scalogram analysis. Thurstone and chave 1929, his work was quickly followed by that of others. The method of equalappearing intervals or the thurstone scale is used to measure attitudes of people.
Introduction it is also known as thrustone scale or equal appearing interval scales. Thurstons theory of intelligence louis leon thurstone 29 may 1887 30 september 1955 was a u. Thurstone scale for measuring attitudes of college students toward. Over the long run, making use of the scale will allow you to understand respondents attitudes more objectively. Semantic differential scale dlm penentuan skor pernyataan scaling, dibedakan menjadi 2. Guttman scale also called cumulative scaling or scalogram analysis is created with elements that can possibly be ordered in a hierarchical manner. Developing the scale is time consuming and relatively complex compared to other scales like the likert scale. Pdf validity issues in the likert and thurstone approaches. To compute a respondents scale score we simply sum the scale values of every item they agree with. There are various problems that affect the validity of attitude scales.
The thurstone scale measures a respondents attitude by using a series of agreedisagree statements of various weights. Thurstone scale is defined as a unidimensional scale that is used to track respondents behavior, attitude or feeling towards a subject only with the use of agree. Thurstone developed his law of comparative judgment. Thurstone university of chicago abstract the object of this study is to devise a method whereby the distribution of at titude of a group on a specified issue may be represented in the form of a frequency. A simple and reliable method of scoring the thurstone. People indicate which of the statements with which they agree and the average response is. In our example, their final value should be an indication of their attitude towards immigration. University of chicago and chicago state university the purpose of this study is to describe and com pare the methods used by thorndike, thurstone, and rasch for calibrating test items. With this context, this exploratory article attempts to describe two confusing issues related with likert scale would be preferable numbers of points on a scale and analysis of the scale. Attitude scales provide a quantitative measurement of attitudes, opinions or values by summarising numerical scores given by researchers to peoples responses to sets of statements exploring dimensions of an underlying theme. It is quite appropriate to say that louis leon thurstone was to psychology of the first half of the twentieth century what gustav theodore fechner was to the last half of the nineteenth. In contrast, the thurstone attitude measurement procedure l.
The development of the paramedic as a health care professional and the movement of paramedic education into the higher education setting has resulted in the need for paramedics and student paramedi. A simple method of scoring the thurstone attitude scales is presented, which does not involve the use of a judging group and yet is found in several samples to be consistently more reliable than the original method of scoring. The aim was to analyse the characteristics of, and validate, a new instrument in italian, scale for the measurement of attitudes towards alcohol. An attitude scale, is a tool prepared for the purpose of measuring peoples attitude to an issue is called attitude scale. Thurstone scale was the first formal technique to measure an attitude. Employing modified thurstone techniques, two equivalent forms of an equal appearing intervals attitude scale were constructed around the topic physical fitness. Thurstone scaling sauser major reference works wiley. Psychology definition of thurstone attitude scales. Analysing thurstone and likert attitude scales as data. These statements help determine not only how a respondent feels, but how strongly they feel that way.
The thurstone scale allows you to understand and compare respondents attitudes. Learn how to use it in your own surveys to measure your. It is a unidimensional scale to measure attitudes towards people. Pdf the development of a thurstone scale for identifying. Thurstone scale, likert scale and semantic differential scale. Methods based on the approach to measurement can be used to estimate such scale values.