early in the interviews, respondents were told: "We in the United States use systems for measuring sizes, weights, and temperature which are different from those used in most other countries" and "Some people think that the relations in the metric system are easier to handle than the relationships in our customary system, such as 12 inches in a foot and 3 feet in a yard, because the metric system is based on the decimal system so that every measure can be easily divided or multiplied by 10." Respondents were then asked several questions concerning their willingness to change to the metric system. Included was the evaluative question: "Do you think it would be a good idea or a bad idea for the United States to change to the metric system of measure?" Survey experience has shown that a single question often gives less satisfactory indications of underlying attitudes than does an index derived from a combination of questions. Thus a composite measure was developed to indicate receptivity to domestic usage of metric measurement. The aforementioned question was combined with six additional questions to construct the index. Respondents were asked to agree or disagree with six statements; three were presented as arguments favoring conversion, the others were opinions in opposition to such a change. The index was constructed by assigning points as follows: - Respondents answering that it would be a "good idea" to change to the metric system were given 2 points; those responding “bad idea" were given minus 2 points. - 1 point was added for each of the following statements with which a respondent agreed, 1 point subtracted for each with which he disagreed: "The U.S. should make the change because the rest of the world uses the metric system." "Shopping and price comparisons would be easier because the metric "The metric system would be easier than our present system for our children to learn." - 1 point was added for each of the following opinions with which a respondent disagreed, 1 point subtracted for each with which he agreed: "Life would just be more complicated; we would have to use conversion tables and that would be difficult to handle." "It would be too costly to change over our household measuring devices." "It would be expensive for business to change their measuring equipment." The resultant index ranged from a minimum of minus 8 (strongly opposed) to a maximum of plus 8 (very receptive). This range was then compressed into a 5-point scale as presented in figure 2. The index can be compared to the single evaluative question; both attempted to measure willingness to adopt the metric system in the United States. In answer to the evaluative question, 25 percent of respondents said it would be a "good idea" for the United States to change to the metric system, while 59 percent responded "bad idea." According to the index. 30 percent of respondents expressed some degree of receptivity to conversion and 58 percent indicated some degree of opposition to the change. 20 40 30 0 Moderately Very Neutral Receptivity to domestic usage of the metric system, as measured by the index, and selected demographic characteristics are shown in table 4. Persons of higher educational attainment were more likely to respond positively to adoption of the metric system; 60 percent of the respondents with a college degree tended to favor conversion. On the other hand, about 75 percent of the persons with less than a high school degree expressed opposition to the change. Differences in the index among persons of different age and sex were significant, although the amount of variation which was accounted for by these variables was not large. Females expressed greater opposition to domestic use of the metric system than did males. Younger respondents were more willing to change than were older persons. Receptivity to adoption of the metric system was not influenced by differences in occupational class after adjustment was made for differences in educational attainment (table 5). An important finding, and one which should be encouraging for proponents of metrication. was the high correlation of a respondent's knowledge about metric measurement and his receptivity to the use of the metric system in the United States (table 6). More than 50 percent of persons able to answer correctly all the questions which were used to measure the level of information, strongly favored adoption of the metric system. Even among persons with the same amount of education, there was a strong correlation between level of information and the index of willingness to change (table 7). This supports the hypothesis that an educational program Table 4. Degree of Receptivity to Domestic Usage of the Metric System by Various Demographic Characteristics Sex of Respondent: 997 398 |