Lecture
Qualitative data are text, a description in natural-scientific language. They may be obtained through the use of qualitative methods (observation, surveys, etc.)
Quantitative data are the next stage in the organization of qualitative data.
Different approaches to the essence of psychological measurement:
1. Presenting the problem as one of assigning numbers on the scale of a psychological variable in order to order psychological objects and perceived psychological properties.
The assumption is that the properties of the measurement scale correspond to the empirically obtained measurement results. It is also assumed that the presented statistical criteria for data processing are adequate to researchers’ understanding of the different types of scales, but the proofs are omitted.
2. This approach goes back to the traditions of the psychophysical experiment, where the measurement procedure has as its ultimate goal the description of phenomenal properties in terms of changes in objective (stimulus) characteristics. This is Stevens’s achievement.
He introduced the distinction between types of scales:
nominal,
ordinal (satisfying the condition of monotonicity, here ranking is possible)
interval (e.g., IQ scores, here it is possible to answer the question «by how much»)
ratio (here the answer is to the question «how many times», with an absolute zero and units of measurement – psychophysics)
Thanks to this, psychological measurement came to serve not only as the establishment of quantitative psychophysical dependencies, but also, in a broader context, as the measurement of psychological variables.
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