Research Methods Tutorials: Introductions to Quantitative and Qualitative Methods

Watch this short, six minute, video from the University of Amsterdam to learn more about Likert scales.

A Likert scale (or Summative sclae) is a symmetric, numerical scale on which respondents select their level of disagreement or agreement with a given statement or question. Degrees of agreement can be assigned a numerical value, from which a total value can be calculated. As seen in the video above. You can assign either positive or negative values to either side of the scale, depending on how the questions are asked.

One of the reasons that so many researcher use Likert scale data is that it is really easy to do math with it. You can easily calculate totals, means, and standard deviations, and use all kinds of statistical methods to further analyze your data. There will be links to additional resources that might be helpful in this analysis on page five of this tutorial.

The image above is taken from: Dawson, J. (2017). An introduction to classical test theory and quantitative survey data. In An Introduction to Classical Test Theory and Quantitative Survey Data (pp. 1-10). SAGE Publications Ltd, https://doi.org/10.4135/9781473983311