Hi every one, Could you please advise if I should combine or compare three different Likert scales in the same research on Social Trust and Social Participation? Now at the end of the data collection, I got more than 450 questionaires to go ahead. But it turned out that I got three or four lanes of answers as the questions I used were of three different ways:
Section A:
(i) 1 item using Likert scale 0-10 (In general how much do you trust most people)
Section B: 4 items, including:
(ii) 3 items usings a 5 option scale (Disagree strongly, Disagree somewhat, Agree somewhat, Agree strongly, Neither Agree nor Disagree)
(iii) 1 item using a 4 option scale (No trust at all, Little trust, Quite a bit of trust, A lot of trust)
Section C:
(iv) 20 items using a 6 option scale, i.e. daily, weekly, monthly, at least once a year, less than once a year, never (How often do you participate in the following local social groups/associations)
Intitally, I intended to construct a combined scale for all scales available so that I could come up with a single 'score' for the social trust level present in my data. But in doing so I may miss out some non 0-10 scale items.
Is there a way that I could merge them into a single 'mega' scale? or should I not do so and compare them/each of them with each other and see them in partial perspectives?
Thank you so much for your valuable advice!!
Best wishes,
Tuyen