Likert scale

The Likert scale is a tool that social scientists use in polling and research to determine public opinions and attitudes. The Likert scale was developed in the first half of the twentieth century, and it remained a popular tool in research studies into the twenty-first century. The Likert scale and similar rating scales help researchers quantify data about social attitudes. Some researchers use a strict definition when discussing Likert scales, and others use more general definitions.

Likert scales assume that people’s opinions range across a fixed, horizontal span. Respondents choose one of the answers in the horizontal scale to show their feelings and attitudes about statements or questions presented by researchers. Likert scales are popular, in part, because they require more information than simple yes or no questions while still resulting in data that can be used in statistical analysis. Nevertheless, some critics say that Likert scales can lead people to choose the most socially desirable answers, rather than the truest answers. As with all data-collection tools, Likert scales are most likely to collect the truest data when respondents can answer anonymously.

Background

Social scientists are people in various research fields—such as sociology, history, economics, anthropology, and political science—who study human behavior and human life. People have been studying human behavior and analyzing how and why people act the ways they do for all of human history; however, social sciences first became specific fields of study mostly in the 1800s. At that time, people became more aware of the effects of human behavior on society and the effects of society on human behavior. As numerous social sciences, including psychology and anthropology, began to take shape, researchers in these emerging fields began to develop tools to help them better understand human behavior and attitudes. (Different fields in social science have different definitions for the term “attitudes,” but one definition is that attitudes are groups of opinions and values held by various groups.)

Starting in the 1800s, researchers in the United States used “straw polls” to measure voters’ attitudes about political candidates. By the early 1900s, social scientists were using statistics gained from polling. In 1936 George Gallup founded the American Institute of Public Opinion, and the Gallup Poll, as it became known, became one of the most famous public polls in the country. Around the same time, researchers were developing better ways to collect data and ask people about their attitudes, values, and beliefs. One of those researchers was Rensis Likert. Likert was a sociologist at the University of Michigan and was interested in developing methods for tracking people’s attitudes. In 1932 he published the paper “A Technique for the Measurement of Attitudes” in the Archives of Psychology. Likert’s paper and method quickly became popular among social-science researchers worldwide. Likert continued to work in his field for decades before retiring in 1970. He remained well known for his belief that the social sciences could help change society for the better.

The Likert scale was important at the time it was created because it helped give quantitative value to qualitative data, making the information quantifiable and usable for statistical analysis. The data collected by Likert scales is often used by companies and businesses as part of their marketing strategy to understand public opinion about particular products and goods. Public opinion polls also often use Likert scales to indicate people’s attitudes about politics and particular social issues.

Overview

Researchers have developed various types of tools to measure people’s feelings and attitudes. In general, when researchers use Likert scales, they present survey respondents with statements and ask respondents to rate how much they agree or disagree with the statements. The Likert scale allows the respondents to indicate their agreement, disagreement, or neutrality. For example, the neutral response might say something similar to “I neither agree nor disagree with the statement.” Researchers can also present questions to respondents instead of statements. When researchers pose questions, they often give the range of answers. At times, respondents might include a neutral response such as “I don’t know.”

The Likert scale makes the assumption that attitudes about any particular subject are linear; in other words, that people’s feelings about a topic can be expressed on a continuum from strongly agree to strongly disagree. A Likert scale often includes five, seven, or nine possible responses, with the middle response being the neutral option. The other choices are often in pairs that are opposites of each other, and these choices cover the range of possible responses. A five-choice Likert scale might have these choices: Strongly disagree, Disagree, Neither agree nor disagree, Agree, and Strongly agree. Respondents read a statement presented on the scale and choose one of the statements to show their reaction to the statement.

Likert scales can be either unipolar or bipolar, with bipolar scales being the most common. Bipolar scales often have choices that are the exact opposite of each other that cover the range of opinions about a subject. A Likert scale that includes Strongly disagree, Disagree, Neither agree nor disagree, Agree, and Strongly agree, is bipolar because, other than the neutral middle response, the responses on the scale have opposite possible responses. A unipolar Likert scale may or may not have a neutral option and will have a scale of options such as Not at all satisfactory, Not satisfactory, Somewhat satisfactory, Satisfactory, and Very satisfactory. The options still cover a range and a scale, but all the answer choices deal with the same quality, which, in this example, is whether something is satisfactory. A bipolar Likert scale would have the respondent thinking about two qualities; in previous examples the qualities were whether the respondent agreed or whether the respondent disagreed.

At times, Likert scales use numerals to indicate a respondent’s possible feelings about a subject. For example, a Likert scale using numbers and terms might include these options: Totally agree, 2, 3, 4, 5, Neutral, 7, 8, 9, 10, and Totally disagree. Researchers may use numerals on a Likert scale when they want to define very precise differences in feelings about a subject so they require many different answer choices. Finding the correct wording for so many responses could be difficult, and respondents often understand the numeral responses just as easily as worded responses. Some Likert scales can be extremely simplistic. Some can have only a few choices. One simplistic Likert scale with a neutral option is: Agree, Undecided, and Disagree. Although this type of simplistic scale might be useful in some situations, social scientists are more likely to use a more detailed version of a Likert scale to ensure that respondents have a full range of answer options from which to choose.

Although researchers often use Likert scales to measure how much a respondent agrees with a statement, they can be used to measure various other opinions. Researchers can use Likert scales to measure the likelihood of a respondent doing something. For example, a question might ask, “How likely are you to shop at this store again?” The responses could vary from Extremely likely at one end to Extremely unlikely at the other end. Researchers could also use a Likert scale to measure how much a respondent values something, how relevant or important something is to a respondent, how frequently a respondent does something, and so on.

Since the Likert scale is often used to determine whether respondents agree or disagree, marketers have learned to use the scale to determine information about people’s attitudes toward particular products or brands. For example, a survey using a Likert scale might list statements about a product such as “I am happy I purchased this product,” with the scale allowing the respondents to agree or disagree with the statement. Marketers use the information about customer attitudes and opinions to develop new products, improve old products, and fine-tune customer service.

Some researchers have claimed that a Likert scale has a much narrower definition. They believe that to be a true Likert scale, a question must meet several different criteria. First, the survey has to include multiple items, or statements, for respondents to react to. Next, the response choices have to have a neutral option and have to be bipolar. Some researchers also believe that the responses have to be listed horizontally and be listed as numeric options (with written labels at the top of the scale) to be a true Likert scale. Although this strict definition fits closely with the scale Likert himself designed, the term has come to refer more broadly to Likert-type scales and Likert-type individual items.

Bibliography

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