Introduction to Self-Report Measurement

This book covers the science of measuring the invisible building blocks of thought processes that are useful for understanding humans, including technology users, media consumers, and consumers of goods and services. It provides:

• An explanation of what self-report measurement entails for beginners;
• A clear set of assumptions needed in order for self-report measures to yield valuable information;
• A mindset that needs to be adopted when using self-report measurement in the contexts of surveys and experiments;
• Guidance for extracting opinion from social media text content and integrating AI;
• A roadmap for quantifying the errors associated with self-report measurement.

Michael G. Elasmar (Ph.D, Michigan State University) is an Associate Professor of Media Science in the Department of Mass Communication, Advertising and Public Relations and a senior Research Fellow at the Communication Research Center at Boston University (BU). He has been a full-time faculty member at Boston University since 1993. He teaches classes in applied statistics, measurement science and research methodology to students enrolled in the Marketing Communication Research (MCR) master’s of science academic program that he created in 1997. Dr. Elasmar served as Director of the Communication Research Center at BU from 1994 until 2015. He is a past Chair (1998-1999) of the International Communication Division (ICD) of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). He was the Founding Editor of the American Journal of Media Psychology (AJMP) and Editor of the International Journal of Public Opinion Research (IJPOR), the official journal of the World Association for Public Opinion Research (WAPOR).