978-1111826925 Chapter 13 Solution Manual

QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW AND CRITICAL THINKING/ANSWERS

1. Define measurement. How is your performance in your research class being assessed?

Measurement is the process of describing some property of a phenomenon of interest usually by

2. What is the difference between a concept and a construct?

A concept can be thought of as a generalized idea that represents something of meaning.

Concepts such as age, sex, education, and number of children are relatively concrete properties

Sometimes, a single variable cannot capture a concept alone. Using multiple variables to measure

3. Suppose a researcher takes over a project only after a proposal has been written by another

researcher. Where will the researcher find the things that need to be measured?

4. Describe, compare, and contrast the four different levels of scale measurement.

Nominal Scales – represent the most elementary level of measurement. A nominal scale assigns a

Ordinal Scales – have nominal properties, but they also allow things to be arranged based on how

Interval Scales – have both nominal and ordinal properties, but they also capture information

Ratio Scales – represent the highest form of measurement in that they have all the properties of

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5. Consider the different grading measuring scales described at the beginning of the chapter.

Describe what level of measurement is represented by each. Which method do you think

contains that least opportunity for error?

The first type of grading assigned a letter corresponding to a student’s performance, and it

represents an interval scale because the descending order of letter represents rank.

6. Look at the responses to the following survey items that describe how stressful consumers

believed a Christmas shopping trip was using a ten-point scale ranging form 1 (= no stress at

all) to 10 (= extremely stressful):

a. How stressful was finding a place to park? 7

b. How stressful was the checkout procedure? 5

c. How stressful was trying to find exactly the right product? 8

d. How stressful was finding a store employee? 6

i. What would be the stress score for this respondent based on a summated

scale score?

ii. What would be the stress score for this respondent based on an average

composite scale score?

iii. Do any items need to be reverse coded? Why or why not?

7. How is it that business researchers can justify treating a seven-point Likert scale as interval?

A 7-point Likert scale is an interval scale, and, strictly speaking, interval scales are not

necessarily continuous. It is a discrete scale because only the values 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 can be

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8. What are the components of construct validity? Describe each.

Construct validity exists when a measure reliably measures and truthfully represents a unique

concept. Construct validity consists of several components:

a. Face – refers to the subjective agreement among professionals that a scale logically reflects

the concepts being measured.

9. Why might a researcher wish to use more than one question to measure satisfaction with a

particular aspect of retail shopping?

The answer to this question requires a recognition that there are several dimensions to shopping.

Like many aspects of our lives, shopping may be a source of both disappointment and satisfaction

10. How can a researcher assess the reliability and validity of a multi-item composite scale?

Reliability is an indicator of a measure’s internal consistency. A measure is reliable when

different attempts at measuring something converge on the same result. Internal consistency

represents a measure’s homogeneity. Internal consistency of a multiple-item measure can be

measured by correlating scores on subsets of items making up a scale. The split-half method of

Validity is the accuracy of a measure on the extent to which a score truthfully represents a

concept. Achieving validity is not a simple matter. It addresses the problem of whether a

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11. Comment on the validity and reliability of the following:

a. A respondent’s report of an intention to subscribe to Consumer Reports is highly reliable.

A researcher believes that this constitutes a valid measurement of dissatisfaction with the

economic system and alienation from big business.

There is a problem with validity in this instance. There may be other reasons for reading

Consumer Reports other than alienation from big business. It has been said that a bent ruler may

b. A general-interest magazine claimed that it was a better advertising medium than

television programs with similar content. Research had indicated that for a soft drink and

other test products, recall scores were higher for the magazine ads than for 30-second

commercials.

This question deals with advertising effectiveness. The question indirectly asks, “What is

advertising effectiveness?” Recall—consumers’ ability to remember commercials—is a standard

c. A respondent’s report of frequency of magazine reading consistently indicates that she

regularly reads Good Housekeeping and Gourmet and never reads Cosmopolitan.

This question implies a longitudinal study reporting magazine readership at several points in time.

Because answers are consistent on all occasions, the results are reliable. However, the question

may not be valid. Suppose, for example, a respondent’s longitudinal report of magazine

12. Indicate whether the following measures use a nominal, ordinal, interval, or ratio scale:

a. Prices on the stock market

b. Marital status, classified as “married” or “never married”

c. A yes/no question asking whether a respondent has ever been unemployed

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d. Professorial rank: assistant professor, associate professor, or professor

Professorial rank: assistant professor, associate professor, or professor is an ordinal scale because

e. Grades: A, B, C, D, or F

RESEARCH ACTIVITIES

1. Go to the library and find out how Sales and Marketing Management magazine constructs its

buying power index.

The buying power index has three variables that are weighted for importance. They are:

Variable Weight

Population .2

(% of USA)

2. Define each of the following concepts, and then operationally define each one by providing

correspondence rules between the definition and the scale:

a. A good bowler

b. The television audience for The Tonight Show

A conceptual definition could be a member of the audience is an individual who watches a

An operational definition could be an individual who watches at least 15 minutes of the program

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c. Purchasing intention for an iPhone

Definitely Probably Uncertain Probably Definitely

Will Will Will Not Will Not

d. Consumer involvement with cars

How important are cars in your personal life?

e. A workaholic

Most students will have a feel for this concept and conceptually define it like an alcoholic—as

someone who works all the time, who is addicted to work, or who works to excess.

The first operational definition that students will suggest is often someone who works more than

Some operational definitions might be answers to “How many hours per week do you work?” or

“How many hours did you work this week?”

“Work is the most important thing in my life.”

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f. Outstanding supervisory skills

g. A risk averse investor

3. [Internet Question] Use the ACSI scores found at http://www.theasci.org to respond to this

question: Using the most recent two years of data, test the following two hypotheses:

a. American consumers are more satisfied with breweries than they are with

wireless telephone services.

ACSI stands for American Customer Satisfaction Index. The answers here are given for the years

b. American consumers are more satisfied with discount and department stores than

they are with automobile companies.

For 2010 and 2011, the scores for discount and department stores were 75 and 76, respectively,

4. Refer back to the opening vignette. Use a search engine to find stories dealing with job

performance. In particular, pay attention to stories that may be related to CRM. Make a

recommendation to Griff concerning a way that job performance should be measured.

Would your scale be nominal, ordinal, interval or ratio?

5. Go to http://www.queendom.com/tests. Click on the lists of personality tests. Take the

hostility test. Do you think this is a reliable and valid measure of how prone someone is to

generally act in a hostile manner?

When I clicked on the personality test, I did not see the hostility test. However, when I searched

for it, it came up. Students’ responses regarding whether or not this is a reliable and valid

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CASE 13.1 FLYAWAY AIRLINES

Objectives: This case offers an opportunity to discuss the nature of service quality, the

measurement of service quality, specific measurement issues and considerations, and related

consumer behavior aspects. Specific objectives are:

1. To provide students with an opportunity to critically compare alternative methods for

measuring a perceptual concept such as the quality of a service.

2. To require students to think comprehensively about the fact that choice of method has

implications for credibility and usefulness of research.

3. To challenge students to discover and compare critical elements of different measurement

processes for the same concept.

4. To demonstrate the concept of validity for alternate methods and to stimulate discussion on

details of that research concept.

Summary: Quality of airline service is of concern to consumers and industry watchers alike.

The perceptual nature of quality makes for a difficult measurement problem. Taking the direct

consumer survey approach has its merits in the subjective richness of the results. This type of an

approach is also more easily understood by a wider audience. It does, however, suffer from

potential sample bias due to lack of respondent experience with multiple airlines and from the

cumbersome aspects of a survey process. In addition, the survey approach does not address the

need to monitor quality on an on-going and timely basis. There are certainly many qualitative

factors that are important to customers in judging quality. These subjective aspects are only

assessable by direct inquiry of the consumer. This does not make them less important, just less

accessible. Elaborate surveying efforts are necessary to monitor this type of consumer opinion.

Most of the major airlines already do this type of quality assessment and use the results to

improve the service they offer the consumer. This information is, however, proprietary and not

available to the public or to competitor airlines for their use in making better choices involving

airline use or for taking competitive action.

Use of a more quantitative and objective approach avoids some of the problems just mentioned

for a survey approach. Quality of service can be compared across airlines on exactly the same

factors for a comparable time period using data available to all consumers and competitive

airlines. Comparisons can be made as frequently as monthly, but more realistically the

comparisons should be made across several months. Using a weighted average approach is more

difficult to understand, but once understood, it offers a depth of detail and competitive

information that surpasses the opinion based survey method.

Taken in tandem we believe the survey method and the AQR are reflective of critical quality

aspects that an airline must consider if they are to be responsive to the customer and remain

competitive. The Airline Quality Rating offers a way to compare the quality of airlines by using

strictly quantitative, comparable, regularly published data. This does not take all aspects of

quality into account and does not tell the whole story. For many of the more subjective aspects,

such as food quality, pleasurableness of the experience, atmospherics, comfort, and employee

attitude, a periodic consumer survey is still necessary. The addition of the AQR to a complete

quality assessment program provides a more responsive and comparable method for judging

service quality for all airlines.

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Questions

1. How comparable are the two different methods? In what ways are they similar? In what

ways are they different?

Both methods use consumer based data. The survey method is more direct, while the weighted

average method uses reported consumer complaints as a large part of the data base. Surveying

The survey method examines perceptual, qualitative, more subjective aspects of the service

2. What are the positive and negative aspects of each approach that Shocker should consider

before recommending a course of action for FlyAway Airways?

Positive aspects of survey method:

Negative aspects of survey method:

Positive aspects of weighted average method:

+ Because of standardized factors, the results are very comparable from airline to

airline and from time period to time period.

Negative aspects of weighted average method:

– Uses only limited data points.

3. What aspects of service quality does each approach address well and not so well?

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A survey approach captures perceptual aspects very well, but misses the finer detail of multiple

encounters. The survey approach forces the respondent to give an “average” opinion, based on

The weighted average of the AQR uses performance data or outcomes as its mainstay. The

4. Considering the two methods outlined, what types of validity would you consider to be

demonstrated by the two approaches to measuring quality? Defend your position.

A. Content/face validity: Definition: Judgment of experts in the field that suggests that the

items being used in the scale are representative of the concept being investigated. Both

B. Criterion validity: Definition: Correlating the results of one scale with the results of another

measure or scale designed to measure the same concept. There are really no other scales

Reliability: The reliability score (Chronbach’s Alpha) reported represents the scale’s freedom

5. Which of the methods should Shocker recommend? Why?

He should recommend doing both. If FlyAway Airways is already doing a customer survey

regarding quality issues, they should continue to monitor this side of the quality concept. In

addition, FlyAway Airways should begin to gather the data and monitor the AQR type scores as

duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.