Talk:Likert scale

message: Working in Human-Computer Interactions for web usability, business people often ask, "Why do you use a 1-5 scale and not a 1-10 scale?"  I explain that choice is largely subjective.  7 or 10 choices offer greater granularity, but can be too focused for some surveys.  It comes down to a Goldilocks problem, how hot do you want your porridge.  
Understanding the subjectivity of this survey technique might help readers understand it in their context.
Jay 
jayamorgan at gmail
:The number of categories that can be sustained is an empirical question. It's not so much a matter of 'how hot do you want your porridge' -- rather, how fine-grained can you make the information without it being artificially so? See polytomous Rasch model for further explanation of this point. For my part, though, I thank you for the comments, very useful. Choice is subjective, yes, but that doesn't mean preferences, attitudes, etc. can't be consistent. Stephenhumphry 05:17, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Seven or nine point scales tend to give much more granularity. This is because a 5 point scale only allows two for levels of agreement or disagreement. More than 9 categories tends to create a cognitive overload. Klonimus 09:31, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Like your comments below, important points for this article. On comment above, I'd like to see evidence for greater granularity with seven categories: i.e. evidence within the structure of the data when subjected to analyses that are sensitivie to this. The problem is separating the semantic space so that the categories carry substantive differences, in terms of the attitude, affective disposition, or whatever is relevant to the item statement. I don't use Likert data much for various reasons, but in my experience, when appling Rasch models I have not found that more than 4 or 5 categories contribute additional information. There ends up being a lot of overlap between categories on the latent continuum and relevant thresholds do not discriminate. Nonetheless, this is not to say it is not possible to achieve such things with sufficient skill and thought. Stephenhumphry 23:45, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Number of Options 

message: I moved this out of the main body because it's not directly relevant as is. The scale and items itself is analysed using "item analysis" methods such a Cronbach's alpha etc. Additionally scales may be analysed by factor analysis, or Guttman/Mokken criteria. Often items, are analysed by looking at their ability to discriminate between high and low scorers on the test.
The summated test scores, can be worked with anyway way you like. Klonimus 09:31, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: John, as you correctly say above, the mean and standard deviation is totally inappropriate with Likert data.  But this is why it is also incorrect to use a parametric test such as a t-test or ANOVA.  Both are in fact based on the assumption that the data are related to the underlying characteristic of interest at least at interval level (and as you know, both use the mean and standard deviation in their calculations).  It is easy to see why - if the relationship is ordinal or lower, equal differences in the metric can have unequal relationships back to the characteristic of interest.  Thus you can make a statistical conclusion by doing an ANOVA on Likert data that would not be seen in the underlying characteristic that you were investigating - you would have made a bad decision.  That goes beyond quantifiable Type I or II error into an unknown amount of systematic error. This is not saying that analyzing it that way wouldn't sometimes "work" (e.g. give you the correct conclusion), but there would be an unknown and unknowable level of risk in that decision unless you could guarantee at least interval-like level of data.   (Binomial data, for example, can be used in ANOVA since it is really testing differences in mean of the binomial distribution (Pi), which is allowed.  Since the shape changes with Pi, though, the samples size must be large to make the ANOVA robust to that.  Similarly, as stated elsewhere, if you mostly have two extremes you are really dealing with binomial-like data.  When analyzing Likert data, I might dichotomize it into "Agree" and "Do Not Agree" or use one of the nonparametic approaches.  I would never use parametric techniques.)  By the way, whether these tests were developed before or after Stevens' recognition of measurement levels is immaterial.  Only the impact on the decision risks taken by using an incorrect approach is relevant.  A good reference for this perspective is Allen, I. Elaine and Seaman, Christopher A., "Likert Scales and Data Analysis," Quality Progress July 2007, p. 64-5.  Available online here.   I would advocate adding a "criticisms" section so that the reader will know that using parametric approaches on Likert data has some serious caveats.--216.160.137.179 (talk) 19:50, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Data analysis 

message: I think the point about item selection in a Likert scale is absolutely fundamental to how these scales should be constructed. Items in a Likert scale should be selected on the basis that they are likely to lead to extreme responses from people with attitudes at the extremes of what is being measured. So if I am measuring a political attitude such as libertarianism vs authoritarianism, I might try to select items such as "People should be allowed to behave however they like, even if it offends other people". You might expect an extreme libertarian to agree strongly with this and an extreme authoritarian to violently disagree. Most wishy-washy liberals would waver somewhere in the centre. The value of selecting these types of item is that they allow the representation of the whole of the spectrum of attitudes. DrJohnBrooke 11:20, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have a question. How come nobody ever talks about the "scale" part of the Likert scale. For example, if choices are arrayed horizontally, with strongly disagree at the left and strongly agree on the right, how does this affect responses compared to arranging them with agree on the left, or top to bottom? - roricka  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Roricka (talk • contribs) 14:40, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  This problem is easily avoided with reverse-coded questions - for instance a fictional measure of introversion I just invented might have two questions: "I enjoy time spent alone more than time spent with other people" and "I enjoy time spent with other people more than time spent alone". If the person answering the questions is biased towards agreeing, or towards disagreeing, or answering on the left or the right side, the questions will produce contradictory answers (it would make no sense for someone to strongly agree with both, so they're probably just agreeing with everything). Robust instrument design has been part of psychological research since at least the 1970s. 152.91.9.219 (talk) 06:30, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

text: Thanks for the response, but you ignored my question, which was, if the desired response for all items were placed on the left for some respondents, and placed on the right for others, and placed at the top for another group, and placed on the bottom for another group, would the resulting scales exhibit differences? I do not agree this problem can be investigated using reverse-coded items. In our findings, reverse-coded items fall together in a component analysis. Removing them gives much better results. Also, you use the phrase "reverse-coded questions." Of course, Likert items are rarely questions. In fact, the use of statements vs. questions is a  hallmark in this field. I think the article should discuss the biases that result or are avoided because Likert items are statements and NOT questions. User:roricka 11:50, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Item Selection 

message: My measurement professor claimed that there is evidence that Likert did not "invent" this scale (several published articles used the scale previous to the referenced article by Likert).  Unless somebody has researched this issue, the artilce would not say Likert invented this scale but rather that he is "said to have" or "thought to have" or, better yet, that the scale is named after him.  (rlj)
I have to agree. As far as I'm aware, Likert suggested that because few people ever choose the extremes on a five-point scale (making it in effect a three-point scale) then we should use seven-point scales instead, cunningly making them five-point scales so to speak.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.50.106.153 (talk) 12:59, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  On Likert Inventing the Scale 

message: A couple of the links in this article (as of today) are highlighted in red and the status decoding shows that the links are apparently set for the editing of the targets. Inside this article, those links and the non-red links appear to be formatted in exactly the same way?
Shanen (talk) 07:17, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia bug in links 

message: What would a two-dimensional Likert-scale be? One in which the items only provided two possible choices? Kingturtle (talk) 19:50, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  two-dimensional? 

message: The article says that controlling for social desirability bias is difficult. I've seen a fair number of instruments that had pretty robust control questions for social desirability, so I feel a claim like that needs a reference. 152.91.9.219 (talk) 06:39, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Social desirability bias 

message: The example image shows the Wikipedia article rating scales and describes them as a "Likert-type scale". The article defines a Likert item as one in which "respondents specify their level of agreement or disagreement on a symmetric agree-disagree scale for a series of statements". The example clearly does not fit this definition.
The image was uploaded on July 17, 2011. Does anyone agree that this image represents a Likert scale and is an appropriate example of the scale?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Turadg (talk • contribs) 19:02, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi. I'm the uploader. I'm sorry—although Likert scales (or Likert-type scales) and rating scales are conceptually in the same cognitive neighborhood (and rating scales functionally can be treated by some users in a Likert-like fashion, that is, "here's how much I agree with the assertion that this article is good"), I think, upon closer look at the articles, that you're right that people who design tests and surveys would prefer to keep the terms differentiated. I will remove the image from this article and rename it at Wikimedia Commons (if it will let me rename—I think regular-schmo users are allowed to rename there now). Thanks for pointing this out. — ¾-10 23:23, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  TQT, I see. Thanks for removing it and renaming the image. It makes a good image for Rating scale so I fixed the link there (after you renamed it.) — Turadg 16:31, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Example image 

message: In an edit summary Mudd1 asked, "If a short "i" is the one in "lick", isn't a long "i" then more like "leek"?)" The answer is that, thanks to the Great Vowel Shift, English is unlike most other languages that use the Latin alphabet. English conventionally calls the /ai/ diphthong "long i" (mind, bind, right), and calls the /i/ "long e" (meek, leek, repeat). It's why the vowel in "leek" sounds like (IPA) /i/ even though "ee" ought to mean /e/ or /ei/ (which English calls "long a", even though, to most of the world, "a" is /a/, not /ei/). Anyway, the change to "diphthong" was a fine alternative way to say it. — ¾-10 02:46, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry for reverting your change. I saw too late that you didn't just revert my edit but posted a comment here. Anyways, I could live with a link to an article explaining this somewhat counterintuitive nomenclature but Long i is about a special character used to transcribe Latin which is confusingly pronounced /iː/, not /ai/. Either way, I really cannot judge which of the two ways to describe /laikərt/ are more readily understood by the majority of readers. "Diphthong" is a word that many will not be familiar with whereas "long i" might confuse many non-native speakers (such as myself). IPA would be a solution but then I understand that, again, many native English speakers are not familiar with this notation. --Mudd1 (talk) 15:01, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Long i /ai/, long e /i/

message: Two things concern me about this edit.
Firstly, it appears to be by .  You know, there is no harm in continuing to edit under your user name?  No one is going to think bad of you for having an edit reverted.
Secondly, I think the edit misses the point of the Likert scale.  The Likert scale is made by adding together scores from a number of Likert items, all of which can take discrete (integer) values.  This is already explained in the article.  What does the edit mean by "the attribute can also be defined in fractions"?  Is this recommending responses on a continuous scale to individual Likert items?  That is not the standard method.
Then there is this edit.
Is this saying that those additions to Wikipedia are by YP Chawla?  We don't credit every contributor individually within the article.  The list of contributors can be seen in the article history.  If you you have written a paper that relates to the Likert scale we would be interested to see it, but I would discuss it here before citing your own paper.
Yaris678 (talk) 15:14, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent additions to the article 

message: I think the language in this article could be made much clearer by following its own advice (in the 'Sample question presented using a five-point Likert' section) about the difference between what an 'item' is vs a 'scale'. 
For example in the 'Scoring and analysis' section it states:"by convention Likert items tend to be assigned progressive positive integer values. Likert scales typically range from 2 to 10 – with 5 or 7 being the most common." It seems to me that the usage of 'scale' is incorrect in this passage as the numbers are actually referring to the number of 'points' or categories available in the response to the question (item)? 
Thoughts?
Jamesdamillington (talk) 11:05, 7 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Consistent language 

message: This statement:
* Bulleted list item
For example, in a set of items A,B,C rated with a Likert scale circular relations like A>B, B>C and C>A can appear. This violates the axiom of transitivity for the ordinal scale.
Defies mathematical convention and is unclear, there needs to be an example to illustrate what this means.
--Leopardtail (talk) 14:27, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Level of Measurement 

message: - for questions early in a test, an expectation that questions about which one has stronger views may follow, such that on earlier questions one "leaves room" for stronger responses later in the test, which expectation creates bias that is especially pernicious in that its effects are not uniform throughout the test and cannot be corrected for through simple across-the-board normalization"
I am struggling to understand what is trying to be conveyed here.
Tastyslowcooker (talk) 03:19, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please someone fix the grammar 

message: I do not see any criticism of a Likert scale.  For example, "do you prefer to go to a movie theater or a library?", that depends on the movie and whether people have their cell phones on or the quality of the general shift of libraries that more closely resemble a garage sale.  Surely there must be a complaint that a Likert scale is illogical.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.135.160.82 (talk) 22:02, 17 April 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism? 

message: HOW IS CARSHIELD RATED ?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.68.108.109 (talk) 22:08, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  HOW IS CARSHIELD RATED IE,A.B.C.# 

message: The article sits within the series on sociology, but Likert scales are widely used in many social sciences (not just sociology). I don't have data on this but anecdotally i think it is more common in psychology; it is also considered a core tool of psychometrics, and Renus Likert himself was a psychologist (not a sociologist). Accordingly, I think the article should sit within the series on psychology. I don't know how to edit which series an article sits within, but if someone can help with this that'd be great. I even note that at the top of this talk page it states that "[T]his article is within the scope of WikiProject Psychology" so at least one other person agrees with me already! Don't forget about it (talk) 00:04, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  "part of a series on sociology"?