Question

Beer Drinkers’ Tastes Change with the Season

What a time to be alive—at least according to beer drinkers. Nearly nine in 10 (88 percent) beer drinkers agree that it’s a great time to be a beer lover. When looking more closely at what it is about beer they love so much, 70 percent say they enjoy trying new types of beer and nearly two in three (64 percent) are fans of local brews. The latter is especially true of craft beer drinkers, 86 percent of whom are fans of local beer, compared to 77 percent of those who prefer import beers and 60 percent of domestic non-craft beer drinkers. Those in their 30s stand out from the crowd in their passion for beer. Among beer drinkers in this age group, 95 percent say it’s a great time to be a beer lover and 85 percent enjoy trying new types of beer. They’re also more passionate fans of local brews than the average beer drinker (76 percent). These are some of the results of The Harris Poll of 2,115 U.S. adults (ages 21 and older, including 913 who drink beer at least several times per year, surveyed online. As the weather changes, so do the taps, with spring seasonal brews replacing the winter drafts. When it comes to beer style, lagers are tops, with 30 percent of beer drinkers saying a lager is their preferred choice. However, 40 percent of beer drinkers say their

favorite beers change with the season. Millennials may welcome the change most as they’re more likely than any other generation to modify their tastes with the seasons (56 percent vs. 42 percent Gen Xers, 26 percent Baby Boomers, 21 percent Matures).

“It’s certainly a good time to be a beer lover,” says Danelle Kosmal, VP of Nielsen’s Beverage Alcohol Practice. “As Americans continue to enjoy some of their favorite traditional lagers, they also have a seemingly unlimited set of options when it comes to styles and new flavors. Whether it’s with a new session IPA, a farmhouse sale or a refreshing summer flavor, there are plenty of reasons for beer lovers and brewers alike to be excited about their opportunities in beer.” Perhaps just as critical as the contents of your pint glass is what’s on the plate next to it. Pizza tops the list of foods beer drinkers say is the best to eat while sipping a cold one (28 percent), which comes as no surprise since a separate Harris Poll found that pizza also ranked as the No. 1 comfort food and beer beats out all other alcoholic beverages the top alcoholic beverage to wash down a slice. Burgers (10 percent) and wings (7 percent) round out the top three favorite foods to pair with a beer.5

Questions

1. What is the construct or constructs in the research? Give a constitutive definition.

2. What levels of measurement could the researchers have used? Give examples

3. What could have been used to measure reliability?

4. How might the researchers approach the measurement of validity?

5. What could be done to measure construct validity?

Answer 1

1. What is the construct or constructs in the research? Give a constitutive definition

Ans :

Constructs are abstractions we use to represent specific things in a study.

In social science when we want to measure the behavioral outcome we assess the personal characteristics. This assessment of personal characteristics is known as a construct.

Constructs can be measured directly and indirectly.

In the given research the direct constructs are:

i. Types of beer people of different age group prefer to drink

ii. Age group of people

iii. Different types of weathers

iv. Beer styles

v. Flavours

The indirect constructs in the research can be

i. Tastes

ii. Satisfaction

Constructs are abstractions we use to represent specific things in a study.

In social science when we want to measure the behavioural outcome we assess the personal characteristics. This assessment of personal characteristics is known as construct.

Constructs can be measured directly and indirectly.

In the given research the direct constructs are:

i. Types of beer people of different age group prefer to drink

ii. Age group of people

iii. Different types of weathers

iv. Beer styles

v. Flavours

The indirect constructs in the research can be

i. Tastes

ii. Satisfaction

2.What levels of measurement could the researchers have used? Give examples

Ans:

The researchers could have used the four levels of measurement which are:

i.Nominal

ii. Ordinal

iii. Interval

iv. Ratio

Nominal level of measurement: Nominal stands for name of category which uses numbers, alphabets as lebels for groups or classes. Nominal level of measurement is used predominantly in qualitative research.

e.g; Numbers on the t-shirts of players of a soccer team.

Ordinal level of measurement: When categories are ordered we call it ordinal level of measurement. The data elements can be ordered with their relative size or quantity.

e.g: How satisfied are with the taste of the food?

1- Very unsatisfied

2- Unsatisfied

3- Neutral

4-Satisfied

5- Very satisfied.

Interval level of measurement: In interval level of measurement we the order and exact differences of both the values. Interval scale provides more powerful measurement than the ordinal scale.

e.g: temperature scale, time, calendar years.

The following questions are also examples of interval level:

i. What is the income of your family?

ii. What is the average height of your family?

Ratio level of measurement: The researcher considers ratio scale as the most accurate way of the level of measurement. The ratio level of measurement not only produces the order of the variables but also we can know the difference between the variables.The zero in this scale are absolute zero.

Measures of physical dimensions like height , weight ,distance are all examples of ratio level of measurement.

e.g What is your weight?

Less than 70kg

61 -69 kg

70-80kg

These are all examples of ratio level of measurement.

3. What could have been used to measure reliability?

Ans: The researcher could have used inter –rater and test retest reliability.

Inter –rater or inter-observer reliability could have been used by the researcher as it helps to assess the degree to which different respondents, who are raters or observers give consistent estimates of the same phenomenon. In the case of the above research, the responses of the beer seller on the change of the tastes of the beer drinkers due to the change of the season could have been used as a measure of reliability which would have been the inter -rater measure of reliability.

Also the test reset reliability measure could have been used as this measure of reliability helps to assess the consistency of a measure from one time to another.

4. How might the researchers approach the measurement of validity?

Ans : The researchers might approach the measurement of validity by adopting to construct measure and content measure of validity.

Construct measure of validity will give the researches the confidence that the method of measurement matches the construct the researcher wants to construct. With this measurement of validity, the researcher would be able to know that the tools which they are using to know if the taste of the beer drinkers changes with the seasons really measure the construct or the tool is measuring respondents' own choice, preference or some other constructs.

With content measure of validity the researcher can assess whether the test is representative of all aspects of the construct

5.What could be done to measure construct validity?

Ans : Some of the steps which can be taken to measure construct validity are:

i. Correlation with other tests measuring a similar construct

ii. Measure against a test that should be measuring something independent from the test which is being conducted.