Measuring Consumer Attitudes toward the Marketplace with Tailored Interviews

The authors demonstrate how item response theory can be applied for cost effective measurement of consumer attitudes with multi-item scales. The measurement technique they discuss and illustrate is tailored to each respondent so that each is asked only the scale items most informative of his or her attitude level. This approach yields attitude estimates from only a fraction of the total number of items in the attitude scale, with a measurable and controllable increase in the standard error of measurement. Potential cost-saving implications are discussed.