How respondents use verbal and numeric rating scales: a case for rescaling

Michael Bendixen and Yuliya Yurova

The dominant practice among researchers is to treat verbal rating scales as interval in nature because of the vast array of analytical techniques that this opens up when it comes to analysis.

How respondents use verbal and numeric rating scales: a case for rescaling

Michael Bendixen and Yuliya Yurova

Nova Southeastern University

Introduction

Market researchers and academics researching in the social sciences are mainly concerned with measuring attitudes, beliefs, perceptions and behaviours. As such, they are largely confined to using verbal and numeric rating and ranking scales in their survey instruments. The way in which respondents use these scales and the arithmetic properties of the scales is of critical importance when selecting the appropriate methods of analysis. Most of these scales are ordinal in nature, which severely limits the methods...

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