Measurement, Designing and Writing Items

Measure is important in research. Measure aims to ascertain the dimension, quantity, or capacity of the behaviors or events that researchers want to explore. According to Maxim (1999), measurement is a process of mapping empirical phenomena with using system of numbers.

Basically, the events or phenomena that researchers interested can be existed as domain. Measurement links the events in domain to events in another space which called range. In another words, researchers can measure certain events in certain range. The range is consisting of scale. Thus, researchers can interpret the data with quantitative conclusion which leads to more accurate and standardized outcomes. Without measure, researchers can’t interpret the data accurately and systematically.

Quantitative Measurements

Quantitative Measurement is a quantitative description of the events or characteristics which involves numerical measurement. For example, the description made as “There are three birds in the nest”. This description includes the numerical measurement on the birds. Quantitative measurement enables researchers to make comparison between the events or characteristics. For example, researchers tend to know who the tallest person in a family is. So, they use centimeter to measure their height and make comparison between all the family members.

Qualitative Measurements

Qualitative measurements are ways of gaining a deeper understanding of a topic. Researchers who are looking to find the meanings behind certain phenomenon or are investigating a new topic about which little is known, use qualitative measures. Qualitative measures are often contrasted with quantitative measures. Both are complex methods of research, however, qualitative measures typically deal with textual data or words while quantitative measures analyze numerical data or statistics.