Chong Ho Yu, Ph.D.

LIKERT SCALE

What is your height?

• 1 foot• 2 feet• 3 feet• 4 feet• 5 feet• 6 feet

Likert scale

• Strongly agree (5), Agree (4), Neutral (3), Disagree (2), Strongly disagree (1)(forced options, discrete)•No equal spacing, not precise measurement• It could under-estimate or over-estimate• A single item is ordinal, but sometimes you can force it to be continuous.

LIKERT SCALE is narrow

• But when you look at the scatterplot, you cannot see a clear associational pattern• Why? The scale

is too narrow (1-7).

Now you see it!

• This correlational pattern is clear.• The range of sore is 1-60.

False precision

• Some people try to convert an ordinal scale to be a continuous scale by using more points.• E.g. Using a 10-point scale,

where 10 means strongly agree and 1 means strongly disagree, how much do you agree or disagree?• Can you really distinguish a “10”

from a “9,” and a “7” from a “6”?

Example: DUREL

• Duke University Religion Index (DUREL): A brief measure of religiosity

• Five items and three dimensions:• Organizational religious

activity: Attending church• Non-organizational

religious activity: Prayer, meditation

• Intrinsic religiosity: Subjective

What are these items? Ordinal? Continuous?

Likert scale

• 1: Strongly disagree• 2: Disagree• 3: Neutral• 4: Agree• 5: Strongly agree

• Weems and Onwuegbuzie (2001): People tend to choose the middle position.

• Should we assign “3” to “neutral”?

What is neutral?

• “Obama care is a good policy.”• Both John and Tom chose “3”.• John’s position: “I am not sure.

There are both pros and cons in this policy.” • Tom’s position: “I already have

my own insurance. I don’t care.”• Is John’s “neutral” the same as

Tom’s “neutral”? • If not, what should you assign to

John’s and Tom’s positions?

What is the midpoint?

•Neither agree nor disagree•Undecided•Don’t know•No opinion•Not apply•Dumping ground?

Solutions

• Use a 4-point scale and omit the midpoint (neutral) (e.g. PISA)• Create more options: SD, D, neither A nor D, A,

SA, N/A, not sure, don’t know…etc.• Use this instruction: “Using a 5-point scale, where

5 means strongly agree and 1 means strongly disagree, how much do you agree or disagree?” Do not label 2, 3, and 4 (e.g. Gallup).

Activity

• Form a small group consisting of 3-4 people.• Discuss: What are the pros and cons of the

preceding solutions? • Go to the Internet and look at a survey (any

subject matter is fine). You can use this site https://www.surveymonkey.com/mp/survey-templates/ or another one.• How can you improve the survey? You cannot use

more than one solution, otherwise your scaling will be inconsistent.• Upload your brief report (1 page) to Sakai.