Before you develop the scale, you need a range of numerical  values which could range from 1-5. This range gives the weight of the responses. For example, if the total respondents is 30 and the scale range is 1= strongly disagree, 2= disagree, 3= some how agree, 4= agree and 5= strongly agree and  from you data 3 persons strongly disagree, you will then have 3x1=3, 8persons disagree(8x2=16), 5 persons some how agree(5x3=15), 9 persons agree(9x4=36) and 5persons strongly agree(5x5=25). total score = 3+16+15+36+25=95. Points=95/30=3.167. You can conclude that the respondents some how agree to the item because it falls within the range of some how agree  

1=lowest score&5= highest score

I have attached a useful paper by two experts in survey question writing.

In terms of how you compute your ultimate scale score, it makes no difference whether your items scores begin with 1 or 0, so pick whichever one will make most sense for the specific kinds of questions that you are writing.

The scoring to start from zero or one is not a problem. the important issue is the scale validity and reliabiltiy. the items should measure what it supposed to measure in the content domain and according to the construct you are interested in and the objective of the scale.

usually Likert scale is summed to get its total score to reflect the level of score achievment.

Since you have developed your own, unique, first-time used index, then scoring it should be relatively easy. Once you have assigned numerical values for the values of each variable, you simply add them up. Until you have amassed a large amount of data, doing anything more 'fancy' statistical wise, would be inappropriate.

Before you develop the scale, you need a range of numerical  values which could range from 1-5. This range gives the weight of the responses. For example, if the total respondents is 30 and the scale range is 1= strongly disagree, 2= disagree, 3= some how agree, 4= agree and 5= strongly agree and  from you data 3 persons strongly disagree, you will then have 3x1=3, 8persons disagree(8x2=16), 5 persons some how agree(5x3=15), 9 persons agree(9x4=36) and 5persons strongly agree(5x5=25). total score = 3+16+15+36+25=95. Points=95/30=3.167. You can conclude that the respondents some how agree to the item because it falls within the range of some how agree  

The level of each item is determined by the following formula: (highest point in Likert scale − lowest point in Likert scale)/the number of the levels used .For instance 7 point likert scale will be (7 − 1)/7 = 0.80, where 1 - 1.80 reflected by “very low”, 1.81 - 2.60 reflected by “low”, 2.61 - 3.40 reflected by “moderate”, 3.41 - 4.20 reflected by “high”, and 4.21 - 5 reflected by “very high”. ( depending on whether you rated 1 as lowest and 7 highest)

Hello dear JUDITH NGULI, can u please give any reference for using this formula? Actually i am also using a Likert scale and want to use this formula but i need an authentic justification to use it in my thesis... thanku :)

Hi....

Scoring start from 0 or 1 is not a big issue. U can follow 5 point Likert scale. To prevent neutral response each statement should have five points ‘strongly agree’ , ‘agree’ , ‘undecided’, ‘disagree’ and ‘strongly disagree’ and may be scored as 5,4,3,2,1.

thanks for the information

Judith, kindly review the example. The calculation is for 5 point Likert scale and not for 7.

I am curious, though--is it acceptable practice to assign numeric values (1-5) to a 5-level Likert scale *after* the responses have been collected? In other words, the respondents were simply given a choice of five levels (strongly agree, somewhat agree, neutral, somewhat disagree, strongly disagree), but they did not use a 1-5 score. Can the researcher assign these values later in order to carry out analysis?

I have a question that follows this one. Assuming that it does follow all the rules of validity and reliability. You have made a Likert Scale questionnaire and you use 1-5; there are 6 questions. You add all the 1's. the 4's, the 5's you divide the results by the amount of questions (5 questions and you scored a 20 b/c that is the sum of all of the 5 questions) What does the Mean tell you? (it would be 4 in this case and NOT using SPSS) This is not a high level questionnaire it is more like do you like this product or not.

If confusion arises from this issue of assigning weights to a likert scale (Strongly Agree, Agree, etc.) and using it to interpret result, I think better use mode. Do not use the mean because mode is the most appropriate. The weight assigned is just arbitrary.

Scoring start from 0 or 1 is not a big issue but it can confuse a lot in understanding the results and interpretation.

Let

0= strongly disagree,

1= disagree,

2=some how agree,

3= agree and

4= strongly agree

So you are using 5 point Likert scale and you start coding from 0 but your summary results (e.g. averages) never approach to 5 because you have given the maximum number 4. It will take a while to understand that Five (5) point Likert Scale is gauging upto 4. While a layman or reader is expecting to maximum gauge 5 for"5 point Likert Scale".

ON the other hand if you start coding from 1 then it will be easy to understand because the summary result of 5 point Likert Scale is gauging upto 5.

So the name and number matches. No clarifications. No Confusion.

Is there any option to get the questionnaire for risk taking and scale including scores?

Thank you very much for sharing

Interesting conversation here. I also ran a principal factor analysis and my new scale has values range from -7 to 7. How do I give meaning to these scores.

read the answer that Sajid give above

Cronbach's alpha assumes that all of the items are simply summed (i.e., given equal weights, rather than the item-weighted scores produced by a factor analysis). I suggest you calculate a simple sum and check its correlation with the scale you produced via factor analysis. If the correlation is above .9 or so, I would stick with the simpler version.

Thanks for the feedback, Teshome. I have read through it but cant related it to my case. Do you see a way it is connected to my question? Please help clarify, if you can.

It is possible that your factor score is a "standardized variable" with a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1. You can check that with descriptive statistics.

Thanks for the comments David. Yes it is actually a standardized variable. The items I had used for the PCA were on different likert scales and it was suggested that I perform a z-score before doing the PCA. Was Wrong with this? I am totally new to all this and would just want to create a scale for one of my independent variables.

Now that I have this scale (-7 to 7) and this is after doing a total sum of the items for my cases. Are these the values to be used in my regression, or I am still few steps away to obtain my final scores . I was trying to measure uncertainty avoidance which has not have a universal agreeably scale in the literature. But it is generally categories into low, middle and high uncertainty avoidance behaviours.

Most factor analysis procedures use correlation matrices, so standardizing the variables makes no difference. And the whole point of computing a score is so that you can use that scale in subsequent analyses, such as a regression analysis. If you think it would

When I tried to find out about standardization, I saw mixed conclusions. Hence, ended up deciding to standardized to be safer, especially that I have different scales for the items. I think I meant to ask, what kind of likert scale suits my scale range (-7 to 7). Or can I go with the low, medium and high measure of uncertainty avoidance.

For my study I used a 5-Likert scale, 1= strongly agree , 2= agree, 3=neutral, 4 disagree and 5= strongly disagree, I have computed the sum of the items related to each variable. When analysing I got this table, how can I interpret the results.

Statistics

Facilitating conditions

N Valid 65

Missing 0

Mean 23.1692

Median 24.0000

Mode 28.00

Kurtosis -.353

Std. Error of Kurtosis .586

Sum 1506.00

you need to develop a scale base on your likert Scale range, I recommend you read Ngodigha S.A article on likert scale it will surely guide you.

I have used three point likert scale from 1 to 3 , 3 being good , 2 for fair and 1 for poor. How to assign individual weight so that i can calculated index value to rank?

Your scale will be 3-1/3 = 0.67

0.67 - 1.67 = Poor

1.68 - 2.35 = Fair

2.34 - 3.00 Good

Your scale will be 3-1/3 = 0.67

0.67 - 1.67 = Poor

1.68 - 2.35 = Fair

2.34 - 3.00 Good

Dear All

I used 4-point likert scale in my study. These below are Mean and SD for sub-factors of a scale.

Mean Standard Deviation

3.06 0.441

3.10 0.499

2.35 0.767

2.86 0.594

3.13 0.493

These Above are the mean and standard deviation of sub-factors of a scale. One of my expert commented and asked from me about these mean values which is given below:

(How were these mean scores obtained? By averaging the responses to the constituent items? How did these scores vary? Between 1 and 4?)

Dears

Yes this is true I got these values by averaging the responses to the constituent items. But Dears I could not understand commenter's next sentence. Kindly anyone who tells me about this sentence. How did these scores vary? Between 1 and 4?

Dear All

I used 4-point likert scale in my study. These below are Mean and SD for sub-factors of a scale.

Mean Standard Deviation

3.06 0.441

3.10 0.499

2.35 0.767

2.86 0.594

3.13 0.493

These Above are the mean and standard deviation of sub-factors of a scale. One of my expert commented and asked from me about these mean values which is given below:

(How were these mean scores obtained? By averaging the responses to the constituent items? How did these scores vary? Between 1 and 4?)

Dears

Yes this is true I got these values by averaging the responses to the constituent items. But Dears I could not understand commenter's next sentence. Kindly anyone who tells me about this sentence. How did these scores vary? Between 1 and 4?

This will answer for you

Can any body reply this question.

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Should_we_assign_3_or_0_for_No_opinion_in_a_five-point_Likert_scale

Whatever the scale is , the law for evaluating the result is :

Interval width = (No. of responses-1)/No. of results

for example :

Likert Scale : 5 categories (from 1-5)

if you want 3 results : Poor , Moderate , Good

Interval width = (5-1)/ 3 = 4/3 = 1.33

Then :

Poor : 1 - 2.33

Moderate : 2.34 - 3.67

Good > 3.67

Alh Abubakar Sadiq Sani

Ali Al-fahham

Do you have a reference for this?

thanks

@Ammanuel Lemma, thank s for the PDF which brings out clearly how to interpret Likert scale data.

Ok pls note that when you give a value of Likert scale to each of your categories,then they are just labels.Or should I say ordinal labels.So you could give a 1 or 5 to start with,just that you move in order which is 12345 or 54321.Till teh time you remember while analysis that the 1 you named was so and so variabel ,it is fine to label it in any order

Dear Ali Al-Fahham,

Can you please help us a reference for the mentioned formula:

Interval width = (No. of responses-1)/No. of results

That formula is actually pretty meaningless, because all it does is (in the example given) is transform the width from 1.0 to 1.3, but it leaves the width the same across all the categories. As long as you have equal widths, you have the same ordinal scoring as you did when you started.

I would like to thanks all researchers.Your answers and PPT helping me a lot to understand what likert scale is and how to use it.

Hi everyone how to compute descriptives for likert data where the responses are not assigned a numeric value

would you pls support me on how to analyze the5 point likert scale data or send me the reference materials

Dedefo Teshite If you have multiple items that each measure the same basic concept, then you may be able to combine them into a scale that will be interval-level. If you have a single item, then you should use non-parametric statistics.

Ali, that is a very good answer to the question. what i need is a reference to justify it. for example if we

say 3.47 is good, who do we quote as a reference? Thank you

I am also struggling with interpreting Likert scale data of scales 1-5 and 1-10. Someone shared with me these categories ranges 1-2.5 = low 2.6-3.5= neutral and 3.6-5=high for 5-point scale while 1-4= low, 4.1-6=neutral and 6.1-10= high for the 10 point scale. Is this correct and there a reference to it?

If you need to combine different Likert-scorings into the same scale, the most widely accepted approach its to standardize each variable (i.e. mean of 0 and standard deviation of 1), before you add them together.

Even so, I would do an Exploratory Factor Analysis first, to make sure you do not get a "methods factor" that separates the two sets of response categories.