Likert Scales

Likert scale is a technique to measure complex concepts, such as attitudes, styles of media use, or satisfaction for aspects of life, and have become increasingly common for survey research into consumer behavior. Due to simplicity, it is the most well-known and used practice of unidimensional scaling. By scales, we mean “measurement instruments [Page 866]that are collections of items combined into a composite score, and intended to reveal levels of theoretical variables not readily observable by direct means” (DeVellis 2003, 8–9). For instance, it is common to combine a set of variables (exposition to political information on newspapers, exposition to political information on television, knowledge of political facts, knowledge of political leaders, etc.) into a single index to measure the level of political information of ...