Osgood scales
Definition:
Widely used semantic differential technique developed by Osgood et al. (Method and Theory in Experimental Psychology, 1952). It is much simpler to construct than many other scales, for example, THURSTONE SCALE, LIKERT SCALE or GUTTMANN SCALING, and yet yields a very high measure of agreement with these more elaborate measures. The method consists of a series of bipolar adjectives (strong-weak, good-bad etc.) separated usually by between five to nine points. The respondent is asked to checkmark the point which best indicates their attitude. Scale positions are sometimes qualified, for example: extremely good, very good, fairly good, neither good nor bad, fairly bad, extremely bad. However, such qualification tends to discourage selection of the extreme positions.
Cross-References:
[Thurstone scales]
[Likert scales]
[Guttman scales]
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© Westburn Publishers Ltd 2002, The Westburn Dictionary of Marketing edited by Michael J Baker, ISBN 978-0-946433-01-8. www.themarketingdictionary.com. Entry: [Michael J. Baker], [1998].