I used it once and I do not think it is wrong to use percentages. However, be warned that the danger of using percentages is that a certain percentage (let us say 40% agree) by Ali does NOT mean exactly the same (40% agree) for Nancy. The actual opinion of two different people although the same, can be expressed by using different percentages.

One more thing. Using percentages is similar to using open-ended questions that lead to interval data. This is difficult to analyze when you have a large sample size. It is similar to asking respondents "how old are you?-------- years old". Then you will end up with so many responses ranging between, for example, 20 years old and 70 years old. If you aim to use crosstabulation, then analyzing such data can be extremely difficult because you have so many responses instead of having only four or five responses, standardized and organized neatly.

Experts on statistics may help you further.

hmmm.. Thank You Sir and brother,

For Example. question is like

I attend congregations because they are a great learning opportunity

A. 100%      B. 75%    C. 50%    D. 25%    E. 0%

Interpretation might be something like 

Absolutely right    ;    Yes, mostly;    half of the times; To some extend but not much; 

not at all

If you identify the meaning of each percentage category, then, your analysis should be fine, I guess.

There is a difference between a LIkert scale, which has multiple items, and Likert scoring for any one item, which is what you illustrated above. If you have only a single item, then this is an ordinal variable. If you have multiple items that are all on the same topic, then they can be converted into a scale which you can use as an interval level variable.

In general, having only a single Likert-scored item is a relatively weak form of measurement.

The percentage rating scale is an effort to improve measurement beyond the ordinal level. And as such looks promising. But one should realize that its effect only hides the essentially ordinal nature of your measurement: if people take "100%" literally very few would select that position. If people would select the nearest item from their personal perspective people who would agree for 87.6% with the item would answer "100%". Now this may seem a bit far fetched, but what I really mean is that the percentages give the impression that the difference between E and F in the example would be equal to the difference between A and B.

For many people this would work as they can think in numbers, but for others it would not work as they cannot think in numbers and even less in percentages. That is, in some populations this approach may work quite well while in other populations it might even decrease validity because people react badly to numbers.

That something looks like interval measurement does not exempt you from validating the interval nature of the scale.

Thanks for the personal invitation to answer your question.  As someone who has studied motivations to volunteer using a quantitative approach, I must confess that I have only used Likert-type scales, usually 7-point scales.  My advice to you would be to stick to measures that have been used in the past and to measurement techniques that have been used in the area you are studying unless it is absolutely necessary to change them.  I can't quite see what will be gained by using percentages to assess agreement because I'm not quite sure that people can discriminate much beyond the 7-point scale (can they really tell the difference between 64% and 65%).  But perhaps you could make the case that people are comfortable with a 100 point scale due to its familiarity (as they sometimes do with the "feeling thermometer" and other similar measurement tools.

Thank you very very much for all the professors for the guidance. I really for more points to think about and the points are of great help.

This is my thesis study on HRM practices and I am focusing on Faith Based Organizations (FBO). The thesis includes different topics including motivation and satisfaction of volunteers from different management practices of the FBO.

Professor @David L Morgan Thank you very much. I am calculating a topic on multiple items and will keep your guidance in mind.

Professor @Rudo Niemeijer Thank you very much. i thought of putting percentages so people can see the difference in numbers from 0 to 100 on 5 points Likert Scale and can give a point. If a person is at 87.6% or 87.4% he can rethink and decide to go for either 100% or 75% which ever is nearest. The difference between the scale remains the same (difference of 25 points) but the choice remains with the respondent. A respondent may also be confused about choosing either 4 or 5 but I also do not know how he would feel better. May be I need a survey on this or need a paper too. Any suggestions further.

Professor @Arthur Stukas Thank you very much. I read about 7 scale of yours bit late and I was looking at 5 scales of Totally disagree, Disagree, neither, Agree and Totally Agree. I felt that this gives a less choice especially in Faith based Volunteers as they are emotionally or religiously attached with their organization and i feared they may choose the last three options only and no one may choose Totally disagree. For this I changed totally Disagree and Disagree to 0% and then put level of agreement in clear percentages of 25% (little agree), 50%, 75% and 100%. I have seen your 7 scales lately with nothing written and i think it can work well definitely in my future studies.

Now my question is, Do I change my percentages for the Faith Based Organisations from percentages to numbers? this is thesis case study and I am collecting data these days... Should I keep collecting for the the time or stop and change? Thank You

Well, if you are already collecting data, I think you should just continue as is and then use your thesis discussion section to talk about the strengths and limitations of your approach and how it varies from other approaches.  Best of luck!

You can use a percentage-based scale, if that suits your research needs, but this is definitely not a Likert scale.

A Likert item must be bidirectional, symmetrical around a middle point (which may or may not be included in the scale), and can in theory extend to infinity in both directions. The scale you are describing has none of these characteristics. Moreover, a Likert item produces ordinal data, whereas yours are scale/continuous. 

If you describe your measurement scales as Likert scales in a publication, you will confuse readers, so you should avoid doing so.

Even if this isn't a true Likert-style item, you can still interpret it as ordinal, and if you have multiple such items, you can combine them to form a scale. What you need to avoid doing is treating it as interval data, just because you attached percentages to the options.

If you are interested in how to convert a set of items into a scale, I have posted some resources on that topic at:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_can_one_help_people_create_simple_scales_from_Likert-scored_items

I think the remark by Kostoulas above shows the confusion between the definitions of "item" and "scale". This is a common problem. The scale is what is being constructed from the items and is thought to be continuous and interval for analytical purposes. The items are always ordinal (even though using percentages creates an impression of interval). This does not mean that people very often treat the items a`s scales by themselves.

Thank You very much Professors.... I will try to keep in mind and improve myself. Please guide if you have more points.

I am thankful to you all and the friend who introduced me Research Gate. Thank You.

I have seen Japanese research performed, instead of a scale, with a line upon which the subjects make a mark and the experimenter then measures the position of the mark with a ruler.  I think that this is a good idea in a cultural that may be more visual-spatial than verbal, as I believe can be said of Japan.  Another thing that I do, upon the suggestion of a Japanese student, is to reverse the order of the Likert scale since usually the number nearest (suggesting nearness of significance to a spatial thinker) is, in an un-reversed Likert scale "1" which usually means the opposite "1 not very appropriate." If you are going to use a more spatial scale (which I think a 1-100 scale would be) then I suggest you consider putting the 100% nearest to the item and the 0% furthest.

Do you agree with this suggestion?  100%----------------------------0%

Please see Kim's bombshell research (Kim, 2002) for proof of the nonverbal nature of East Asians, and my blog (sorry, being verbal is fraught) for musings on the visual-ness of the Japanese. I think that verbal-ness is something that applies particularly to Westerners under the guise of “psychologization.”

See this quote from the latest paper that I read to day here by Prof Ma-Kellams, with my comments in brackets

"cultural differences may center more on Western “psychologization” (verbal-ness?) rather than Eastern somatization (bodyliness, visualness?)".

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269770454_Cross-cultural_differences_in_somatic_awareness_and_interoceptive_accuracy_a_review_of_the_literature_and_directions_for_future_research

Kim, H. (2002). We talk, therefore we think? A cultural analysis of the effect of talking on thinking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

My blog

http://burogu.com

Article Cross-cultural differences in somatic awareness and interoce...

 I think , it is possiblee to change the likert scale of range to percentage for example, less than 1.49 is very low as equivalent to less than 30% very law , more than  4.5 very high as ( 90%). But we need to give the range so that our readers can understand its meaning in a range wise.  This is very useful whenever you are comparing results that are coming from different scales