"This book is concerned with techniques for the construction of attitude scales. Once a set of attitude statements has been collected, there are two general methods that have been used in the development of attitude scales. One of these methods involves the use of a judging group. The judging group is not asked to respond to the statements in terms of their own agreement or disagreement with them, but rather to judge the degree of favorableness or unfavorableness expressed by each statement. These judgments are then used as a basis for determining scale values of the statements upon a psychological continuum. Once the scale values of the statements are known, subjects can then be asked to express their agreement or disagreement with the individual statements. Attitude scores for these subjects can then be obtained based upon the prior knowledge of the scale values of the statements. The judgment methods for constructing attitude scales differ only in the manner in which the judgments and scale values of the statements are obtained. They include the method of paired comparisons, the method of equal-appearing intervals, and the method of successive intervals. These methods are described in Chapters 2 through 5. A second method of developing attitude scales is based upon direct responses of agreement or disagreement with attitude statements. Since the response methods do not require prior knowledge of the scale values of the statements in any exact sense, a judging group is not necessary. It is sufficient for the response methods if one can assume that the response "agree" to a statement indicates a more favorable attitude than the response "disagree," or vice versa. The response methods for constructing attitude scales include the method of summated ratings and scalogram analysis. These methods are presented in Chapters 6 and 7. Another method for constructing an attitude scale that makes use of both judgments and responses is described in Chapter 8. This method is termed the scale-discrimination technique. It is an early effort upon the part of Kilpatrick and myself at a synthesis of a scaling and a response method for developing an attitude scale. H-technique, as described in Chapter 9, is also a response method. It has as its objective the improvement of a cumulative scale--a kind of scale about which more will be said in the text. In this chapter I have also described another effort at a synthesis of scaling and response methods which, for want of a better name, I have called W-technique. This, in brief, represents the content of this book"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).

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Hardly an American today escapes being polled or surveyed or sampled. In this illuminating history, Jean Converse shows how survey research came to be perhaps the single most important development in twentieth-century social science. Everyone interested in survey methods and public opinion, including social scientists in many fi elds, will find this volume a major resource.Converse traces the beginnings of survey research in the practical worlds of politics and business, where elite groups sought information so as to infl uence mass democratic publics and markets. During the Depression and World War II, the federal government played a major role in developing surveys on a national scale. In the 1940s certain key individuals with academic connections and experience in polling, business, or government research brought surveys into academic life. By the 1960s, what was initially viewed with suspicion had achieved a measure of scientific acceptance of survey research.The author draws upon a wealth of material in archives, interviews, and published work to trace the origins of the early organizations (the Bureau of Applied Social Research, the National Opinion Research Center, and the Survey Research Center of Michigan), and to capture the perspectives of front-line fi gures such as Paul Lazarsfeld, George Gallup, Elmo Roper, and Rensis Likert. She writes with sensitivity and style, revealing how academic survey research, along with its commercial and political cousins, came of age in the United States.

Intended for the social scientist who must develop a rating on attitudes, values and opinions, this text provides information on the construction of more effective scales. It includes information on how to validate a scale and how to develop a summated rating scale based on classical test theory.

The major goals of teaching in general, and science teaching, in particular, are to develop a scientific attitude among the pupils and to make them analytical pattern in thinking. Scientific Attitude and Cognitive Styles discusses the concepts, constructs tools and procedures for the measurement of these two variables. Based on an extensive research on school going adolescents, this book first gives a comprehensive survey of the work done in the past and then elucidated the domain wise components of the scientific attitude, obtained through factor analysis of scientific attitude scores. Then it deals with the effect of major educational, psychological and sociological factors on cognitive styles and scientific attitude and the inter-relationship between these two variables. It first describes the extent to which the scientific attitude and the field-dependent and field-independent cognitive styles exist in our school going adolescents. At the end, it discuses the implications of the findings for researchers, teachers and teacher-educators. The book will be useful for post-graduate students, researchers and teachers working in the fields of education, psychology, and sociology.