With what Art said in mind, if you’re
desirous of eliminating the neutral option, a six-point scale is far superior
to a four-point scale. The research on Likert and Likert-type scales is that
most people can discriminate up to seven levels of response, so you’re
safe with six.
Brian
From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Art Kendall
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2011
2:20 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: A 4 point Likert
scale
Why do you want to use only a 4 point Likert scale?
_The more you restrict the variance of a variable the more you restrict its
possible covariance._
As a rule of thumb you want items to approximate a continuous construct as much
as possible given who your respondents are.
An actual Likert item has 5 points SD D ? A SA. Do you have a Disagree to
Agree construct for your response scale?
If your scale has many items, the total (mean) score might not be too
restricted.
If you do not have scales, but are measuring a construct with a single variable
the restriction of variance and therefore on covariance is even more
problematical.
In short, a 4 point response scale is usually inadvisable. Why coarsen your
measurement any more than is really necessary?
Art
Social Research Consultants
On 10/17/2011 1:13 PM, Mohamed wrote:
Hi I intend to use a 4 point Likert scale format in my survey. I want to know if this puts limitations on the type of statistical analysistests conducted? Regards Mohamed --View this message in context: http://spssx-discussion.1045642.n5.nabble.com/A-4-point-Likert-scale-tp4910676p4910676.htmlSent from the SPSSX Discussion mailing list archive at Nabble.com. =====================To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to[hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except thecommand. To leave the list, send the commandSIGNOFF SPSSX-LFor a list of commands to manage subscriptions, send the commandINFO REFCARD | Free forum by Nabble | Edit this page |