A labeled magnitude scale for measuring the anticipated impact of immediate experiences

Abstract

Lundberg et al. (2022) recently developed a rubric for classifying experience impacts as ordinary, meaningful, memorable, or transformative. This article extends that contribution by developing a measure of anticipated impacts suitable for evaluating the anticipated impacts of immediate, structured experiences, such as heritage interpretation experiences, museum visits, and events. We developed a labeled magnitude scale (LMS) by calibrating six adverbial modifiers of impact intensity (negligible, slight, significant, profound, substantial, transformative) to judges’ ratings of ratio-scaled distances. We examined criterion-related evidence of validity using 2,867 experience observations from 594 university students who visited venues selected to advance their emotional connection to their university. Students completed the LMS immediately after their visits, along with measures of hypothesized determinants and results. Findings supported all hypotheses; the LMS yielded scores from which valid inferences may be made about anticipated impacts of immediate, structured experiences.