This article examines the fundamentals of index and scaling techniques in public administration research. The article identifies the common features as well as the differences between indices and scales. This is followed by a discussion of index construction in terms of the steps in selecting the possible items, examining their empirical relationships, and scoring and validating the index and scale construction. Attention is also paid to scale construction including a brief discussion of the Bogardus Social Distance Scale, Thurston Scales, Likert Scaling, Semantic Differential and Guttman Scaling.