Dear researchers
I want to use in my research the questionnaire developed by 'Natalie Allen and John Meyer' to measure Organizational Commitment (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/105348229190011Z). These researchers used the 7 point scale to measure Organizational Commitment.
May, I use 5 point scale instead of 7 point scale on the same questionnaire?
A 7-point scale provides more options, which increases the likelihood that the perceptions of people will be accurately captured by appealing practically to the “faculty of reason” of respondents; some researchers think a 7-point scale advances the methodological robustness of a survey while other reckon it demands more cognitive effort from respondents. That said, the rationale for using a 7-point or 5-point scale ought to be a function of the nature of the question(s).
Thank you Olivier Sir for your time and valuable response.
I will consider your point while I am making my questionnaire.
Much appreciated it.
Olivier Serrat is right: a 7-point scale may require a bit more cognitive effort from the respondent, but it may give more precision, if your respondents can handle this.
A 7-point may help respondents to be more precise; for instance they have to think whether to put their mark under subtly different answers like 'Yes! agree completely' and 'Yes agree', or to give another example 'Yes? hesitate but yet agree' and 'No, hesitate but yet disagree'. The example I give is from a 6-point scale, which has the advantage of leaving out the middle category; some respondents like to use this as an escape route for not deciding what they think or if they are afraid to be frank about their attitude.
So, I would advise you to consider this aspect as well.
Thinking about your question, it comes to mind that you may perhaps use both types of scale in your reseach and find out yourself what works best.
If your sample is big enough you can split the sample randomly and present half of the respondents the questions in 5-, and the other half in 7-point format. If you have some other variable that can be used to validate your scale, you can use the correlation with that criterium as an indicator which way is best. Generally, if one of the two types gives more clear correlations with other variables, I would certainly prefer that one. Also compare the reliability coefficients of both types and the item-total correlations of each of the items; it may be quite revealing!
Thanks for you question; it is well worth thinking about.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Higher Education
- Universities