Choosing Appropriate Assessment Strategies

In some research, observable physical entities are directly measured. This is a description of

• intangible measurements

• substantial measurements

• qualitative measurements

• external validity

Ralph wants to conduct a study on the extent to which teachers and parents in a school value physical exercise. He plans to use questionnaires in which participants will rate the importance of different daily activities. This is an example of

• internal validity

• substantial measurement

• intangible measurement

• qualitative measurement

Answer explanation

Measuring intangible phenomena--phenomena that have no concrete basis in the physical world--can sometimes involve considerable creativity. Which of the following is an example of a creative effort to measure an intangible phenomenon?

• A researcher spends 6 months following a small band of gorillas through the forest so that the group will become used to her presence

• A researcher records the number of interruptions in a conversation between friends in order to measure social dominance

• A researcher observes conversations between friends to discover the general areas in which they have shared belief

• A researcher conducts an extensive literature review to discover how many different types of questionnaires have been used to measure social dominance

A scale with equal units of measurement is referred to as a(n)

• interval scale

• ordinal scale

• nominal scale

• ratio scale

A scale that uses numbers to label or name each data point is called a(n)

• interval scale

• ordinal scale

• nominal scale

• ratio scale

A scale that uses numbers to label or name each data point is called a(n)

• interval scale

• ordinal scale

• nominal scale

• ratio scale

Which of the following is an example of a measurement that uses an interval scale?

• teaching evaluation form

• thermometer

• tape measure

• scale

A scale that allows for the rank ordering of data is called a(n)

• ratio scale

• nominal scale

• ordinal scale

• interval scale