Category: Uncategorized - DataForce Survey Research Services

What is a Likert Scale and How to Create One

Are you interested in finding out what you can use to measure questions that are neither agreed nor disagreed? A Likert scale can help you measure attitudes and opinions with a greater degree of nuance than simple binary questions, which offer only two answer options. Please read our blog post to learn what is a Likert scale and how to create one for your next survey.

1. What is a Likert scale?

The Likert scale is one of the most popular rating scales developed to measure one’s attitudes or opinions. Fixed choice response formats are used to determine how people feel about the topic, products, services, or experience. The scale deems that the strength/intensity of the experience is linear. These linear scales measure points of agreement/disagreement. People are given five to seven choices, or even nine balanced responses, that often come with a neutral point.

2. Common Likert Scale Question

A Likert scale does not have a fixed number of leveled items. Many researchers use five levels, but some also use 4, 7, 9, and even 10-leveled items. Since adding more levels produces diverse valuations, a 5 or 7 level scale is most often ideal for avoiding extreme options by obtaining just a bit of variation.

Below are some examples of Likert scale questions and answers:

a. Agreement

The employee training provided the knowledge I need to do my work efficiently.

Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Undecided
Agree
Strongly Agree

b. Satisfaction

How satisfied are you with our customer support?

Highly Dissatisfied
Dissatisfied
Neutral
Satisfied
Highly Satisfied

c. Frequency

How often do you visit our store?

Very Frequently
Frequently
Occasionally
Rarely
Never

3. When to Use Likert Scales

Likert scale is useful in measuring the general feeling or opinion of a particular topic, product, services or experience, and collecting additional data on the factors that contribute to those feelings or opinions. However, a Likert scale should only be used when the question items are related to each other and can be presented in a degree-scale form. Since respondents are not limited to a yes/no answer, a Likert scale allows researchers to obtain quantitative data that can be easily analyzed. Nevertheless, a Likert scale may be compromised because of “social desirability”. Social desirability is the bias exhibited by people to present themselves in a positive light in the community. For example, in taboo questions involving sex, illegal drugs, or racism, respondents may heighten “good behavior” or depress “bad” or undesirable behavior of their responses. One way to reduce social desirability bias is by allowing anonymity on self-administered surveys. A study by Paulhus (1984) found that when respondents have to put their name, address, and telephone number on the survey, results show more positive personality characteristics than an anonymous survey.

4. How to create a Likert Scale

Establish the footing of your survey questions and response scale by first deciding what you want to measure. It is best to use a Likert scale when several factors are influencing the way your respondents feel about something. For instance, you want to measure patient satisfaction. Many factors affect patient satisfaction, including affordability, general behavior of doctors, amenities, and administrative procedures. The respondents’ opinions, attitudes, feelings, or experience must be measurable in a scale form. Moreover, make sure that there are two well-defined extremes for the response.

For Example:

Recommendation

A Likert scale should have the same number of positive and negative responses.
Stay odd. Provide your respondents with a neutral option.
Use the appropriate description to label response. When you just use numbers, people may obscure which end is affirmative and which is undesirable.
Make sure your survey questions are specific
Use terms that your target audience understands
Avoid bias questions
Avoid long and complicated questions
Avoid double-barreled questions

Check out our post on How to Write Great Survey Questions

You’ve most likely encountered Likert scale questionnaires without even knowing it. Likert scale questions are valuable for assessing people’s opinions on a specific topic when undertaking in-depth research.

For more information on data collection techniques or any aspect of mail survey management, contact us today! We provide outstanding quantitative data collection services and paper scanning services!

Get more information on – survey research services incentive fulfillment services or survey mailing services

What’s the Difference Between Qualitative Research and Quantitative Research?

To understand a problem, large or small scale, both high quality and relevant data are needed. If you’re a researcher, you’ll have to collect this data using Qualitative Research or Quantitative Research methods. Without a solid understanding of the difference between qualitative and quantitative research, you risk using a less suitable method of data collection, impacting your results, and ultimately your study.

In this post, we’ll discuss all the things you need to know about qualitative and quantitative research, their differences, and how to best use them for the success of your project.

Content

Definition of Qualitative and Quantitative Research
Table of Comparison of Qualitative and Quantitative Research
Key Differences and Example

Definition of Qualitative and Quantitative Research

Qualitative Research uses non-numerical measures to understand fundamental behavior, reasons, and motivations. Unstructured or semi-structured methods are utilized to gather insight into questions. This stage is often considered as the exploratory stage of research where freedom in response is implemented to gain an initial grasp of a problem.

For Example: An open dialogue with participants to find out why customer satisfaction ratings are low. Data from qualitative research can later be used to generate quantitative data to develop ideas or solutions. This is done by tallying the frequency of the qualitative result and determining the factors which are most relevant.

Quantitative Research is used to assess a subject by utilizing data that can be measured and then interpreted using statistical evaluations. Correspondingly, closed-ended questions are applied, and the target audience is given a set of options to use for responding. Quantitative data provides numerical facts!

For Example: The percent of people that find fulfillment in their job, or think their trainer is effective. The analysis of opinions, attitudes, and behaviors are simplified by using numerical data to draw conclusions, test a hypothesis, and discover trends in research.

Table of Comparison of Qualitative and Quantitative Research

Key Differences and Example

The key differences between Quantitative and Qualitative Research are the purpose and methodology.

For Example: A School Board wants to find out how many of their students feel their teachers care about them. They use an in-house school survey composed of closed-ended questions to provide a numerical measurement. Let’s say the school finds out that 800 out of 1200 of the students don’t feel their teachers care about them. This is quantitative research. The purpose of quantitative research is to provide a concrete numerical measure by using the closed-ended methodology in order for the response of the students to be measured on a common scale. Furthermore, the school board decides to dig deeper into this issue. Consequently, they create a focus group discussion composed of 5 students from each class. The goal is to understand the key causes through open dialogue. The result of this research will be the opinions and statements of the chosen students. This is qualitative research. The purpose of qualitative research is to provide a deeper insight by looking at the human perspective, hence, using an open dialogue for respondents to sufficiently express themselves.

Do You Need a Partner in Your Research?

Partner with DataForce Survey and Study Management

Our expertise in high-volume, paper-based, and multimodal data collection projects encompass the entire data collection supply chain. We can provide you with end-to-end data collection services, or participate in any part of the supply chain where you need assistance – from project scoping to form design to printing, mailing, fulfillment, data collection, data delivery, result reporting, and analytics. Contact us now!

For more information on Survey Mailing services and Data Collection Services, survey fulfillment services Contact us Now!