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 templates/ or another one. templates/ 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.