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5 vs 7 Point Likert Scale

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  • April 29, 2009 at 5:28 pm #52285

    CB
    ★ 10 Years ★
    Participant

    My colleagues and I are in a debate on what works best in terms of measurement properties? Could you please share your thoughts on this?

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    April 29, 2009 at 5:55 pm #183776

    Ken Feldman
    ★ 10 Years ★
    Participant

    On one hand 7 has more discrimination than 5. On the other hand, can people make real distinction across the scale. On one hand, can you adequately provide unique operational definitions across the wider scale. On the other hand, will the scores go across the scale or cluster in the middle. Sometimes you can get away with faking a 7 scale as continuous under the right circumstances so that’s good. For a scale of 5 it is not relevant to report out averages and standard deviations as many people do. You can only report out proportions as a valid measure of the data. Hope that adds to the debate.

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    April 30, 2009 at 2:07 pm #183788

    Saherngu
    ★ 10 Years ★
    Participant

    7 point Likert Scale is my preference. Generally speaking, the 7 point scale provides more granularity and hence better decision making. Though, I would provide a description of the scale, such asStrongly Neither Strongly
    disagree Agree or Disagree Agree
    1…………….4…………….7

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    April 30, 2009 at 3:23 pm #183790

    Vila
    ★ 10 Years ★
    Participant

    It will also depend on the type of survey.
    If it is phone based, a 7 point scale can become very lenghty. If web based then it is not an issue

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    November 3, 2009 at 8:06 am #186555

    Jason Boyd
    ★ 10 Years ★
    Participant

    Hope i can add some useful comments.  I’ve conducted a number of postal surveys of health consumers sometimes using Likert items and far prefer five point scales.  I spent a fair bit of time looking at clustering of responses and even a five point scale isn’t fully utilised by responsents.  Clustering around the upper and lower three items by questionnaire section was prevalent and has persisted when seven item questions were used.  I was just looking into this comparison for a colleague and found a useful website:
    http://intelligentmeasurement.wordpress.com/2007/11/20/likert-scale-surveys-best-practices/
     

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