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Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.zawhether the approach will be qualitative or quantitative, it is essential that theconcept alienation should be rendered measurable.It would obviously be quite absurd, for example, to approach individuals and toask them whether they are alienated. Similarly, taking up a position on a streetcorner or in a factory, and trying to observe whether people are alienatedwould be equally ridiculous. The obvious, and most common, approach wouldbe to collect data on the theoretical concepts by means of indirectmeasurement. This would, for example, mean that a list of questions or itemswhich are assumed to be elements of the phenomenon called alienation iscompiled, and that these are presented to a group of people in an interviewsituation. If one were, for example, to administer say twenty items which dealwith aspects of alienation (without at any stage mentioning the conceptalienation), it ought to be possible to gain an overall impression of the person’sposition with regard to the phenomenon. As we indicated at an earlier stage,the denotative dimension of a concept relates to the particular phenomenon, orcharacteristics of a phenomenon, that is associated with the use of the concept.The process of operationalization therefore involves compiling a list of realcharacteristics denoted by the concept for the purpose of measurement. Withthe construction of a measuring instrument (scale, questionnaire) the items orquestions are regarded as indicators of the list of denoted characteristics.The most commonly used technique of indirect measurement in thequantitative tradition is to be found in scale construction. Further to ourexample of alienation, we shall now pay attention to Dean’s (1961)construction of a scale of social alienation that is directly based upon Seeman’stypology.An example: Dean’s social alienation scaleDean regarded three of Seeman’s dimensions as most typical of the constructalienation. These were powerlessness, normlessness, and, what he referred toas social isolation. He subsequently formulated a number of questions relatingto each of these dimensions which he believed would, in total, define thedimension more clearly. The item format required that each item be rated on afive-point scale: Strongly agree, Agree, Uncertain, Disagree, and Stronglydisagree.Item scores ranged between 4 (Strongly agree) and 0 (strongly disagree). Fiveof the items were negatively worded, necessitating a reversal of the scoringpattern. Sub-scale scores were used to determine an individual’s level ofpowerlessness, normlessness, and social isolation, as well as a total scale scoreto determine his or her overall level of alienation. According to the schemeused, a score of 96 (24 x 4) would indicate a maximum level of alienation, witha score of 48 representing a neutral score. For illustrative purposes, a few itemsfrom each sub-scale are reproduced here:65