Russel-Research-Method-in-Anthropology

12
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Scales and Scaling
This chapter is about building and using composite measures. I’ll cover
four kinds of composite measures: (1) indexes, (2) Guttman scales, (3)
Likert scales, and (4) semantic differential scales. These four are the most
commonly used in social research today. A fifth, magnitude scaling, is less
common, but it’s very interesting and it will give you an idea of the clever
things that are going on in the field of scaling these days. First, though, some
basic concepts of scaling.
Simple Scales: Single Indicators
A scale is a device for assigning units of analysis to categories of a variable.
The assignment is usually done with numbers, and questions are used a
lot as scaling devices. Here are three typical scaling questions:
1. ‘‘How old are you?’’
You can use this question to assign individuals to categories of the variable
‘‘age.’’ In other words, you can scale people by age. The number that this first
question produces has ratio properties (someone who is 50 is twice as old as
someone who is 25).
2. ‘‘How satisfied are you with your classes this semester? Are you satisfied, neutral,
or unsatisfied?’’
You can use this question to assign people to one of three categories of the variable
‘‘satisfied.’’ That is, you can scale them according to how satisfied they are
with their classes. Suppose we let satisfied 3, neutral 2, and unsatisfied
1. Someone who is assigned the number 3 is more satisfied than someone who
is assigned the number 1. We don’t know if that means 3 times more satisfied, or
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