USE OF VAGUE QUANTIFIERS IN MEASURING COMMUNICATION BEHAVIORS

Scholars often ask respondents to answer media use questions in such terms as "often," "sometimes," "rarely," or "never," but do these words mean the same thing to different people? This study with two groups in two time periods indicates these words do not always mean the same thing to different people. These words may not, therefore, add up to an interval scale, as some scholars assume. If a scale is assumed to be interval, and it is not, some research outcomes may be uninterpretable, or just plain wrong.