Scales and specific sociological measurement

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to show the specificity of the sociological measurement, to propose a new classification of scales, to consider certain aspects of the problem in the understanding and creating scales. The study was based on the analysis of various types of scales, and a special experiment. The novelty lies in the proposed classification of scales according to the parameters of the measurable properties, types of measurable properties, and measurement accuracy. The scales can measure available properties, properties` value relation, and value of the property. The scales can be demographic, hierarchical, behavioral, and can give subjective evaluation. In terms of accuracy scales can be attributive, ordinal, ordinal reduced to an absolute, and absolute which reflect all cases of measurement. The article shows that the nominal and interval scales are research artifacts. The author describes how to reduce the ordinal scale to the absolute. The content of the paper differs from the traditional views and represents an alternative point of view.