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Article
Measure proliferation in advertising research: are standard measures the solution?
International Journal of Advertising
  • Lars Bergkvist, Zayed University
ORCID Identifiers

0000-0002-4271-9182

Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2020
Abstract

© 2020, © 2020 Advertising Association. Recent research has found considerable measure proliferation (i.e., the same construct is measured in multiple different ways) in advertising research. Measure proliferation increases the risk of using invalid measures, may render research results incommensurable across studies, opens up for ‘p-hacking’, and causes practical problems for researchers. Standard measures of advertising constructs would solve many of these issues but raises other issues such as what criteria to rely on when developing and evaluating measures. This paper discusses problems associated with measurement proliferation, challenges when introducing standard measures, and outlines a way forward for advertising research. It is suggested that advertising research can progress towards standard measures by gradually introducing three new journal publication requirements over an extended period of time: 1) full disclosure of measurement information, 2) all measures should be formally validated, and 3) standard measures should be used in all studies (with justifiable exceptions). In addition, the paper discusses further research that would support the introduction of the new publication requirements.

Publisher
Taylor and Francis Ltd.
Disciplines
Keywords
  • Measurement,
  • methodology,
  • P-hacking,
  • psychometrics,
  • standard measures
Scopus ID
85083520165
Indexed in Scopus
Yes
Open Access
No
https://doi.org/10.1080/02650487.2020.1753442
Citation Information
Lars Bergkvist. "Measure proliferation in advertising research: are standard measures the solution?" International Journal of Advertising (2020) - 13 ISSN: <a href="https://v2.sherpa.ac.uk/id/publication/issn/0265-0487" target="_blank">0265-0487</a>
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/lars-bergkvist/10/