A Critique of Likert-Response Items in Social Science Research

This chapter critiques the use of the Likert response items for scale development. Likert response data when as nominal data and analyzed as nominal data is useful for recording and analyzing participants' attitudes about a topic. However, it is illogical for researchers who use Likert response data as interval data. The typical five or seven-item Likert response provides three response methods for each topic under study: a neutral item that is categorical, a two or three-item negatively worded ordinal scale, and a two or three-item positively worded ordinal scale. While Likert suggested scoring the five-item response with the numbers 1-5 and scoring the seven-item response with numbers 1-7, it places the neutral response in the 3rd or 4th position, which, if treating the data as interval means that 'neutral' scores higher than the Strongly Disagree-Disagree and lower than the Agree-Strongly Agree items, is not a logical outcome.

What’s the measure? An empirical investigation of self-ratings on response scales

The present investigation comprises two studies. In Study 1, participants gave numerical information about demographic attributes (real-scores). They subsequently rated themselves regarding these attributes on a five-point Likert-type scale (5LTS). Items used different phrasings, inducing (1) a general, (2) a personal, and (3) an outsiders’ perspective. By regressing these ratings on the real-scores, it was shown that information on centers and intervals of the real-scores were not readily reflected by the response scales. This led to different representations of the intervals and centers of the real-scores. The outsiders’ perspective resulted in the most adequate representation of the real-score intervals. Study 2 used neutral item wording with a 5LTS and a four-point Likert-type scale (4LTS) to investigate the possible confound of positive wording. This increased the adequacy of the representations only slightly. Together, the findings indicate that, even on average, the investigated rating scales and items reflect the actual attributes only limitedly and that the self-ratings depend on the item phrasing instead of simply representing a coarse measure of the real-scores. All data and analysis scripts are available on https://osf.io/4pcdb/.

The Missing Style Problem and the Translation of French Erotica into English

In most synonym sets, there is a neutral item that does not belong to any particular style (poor is neutral whereas impecunious and broke are not). In writings about sex, French has a neutral style but English does not. The English translations of two French autobiographies detailing the authors’ sex lives are presented and some of the translators’ strategies are discussed. These two cases are seen against the general background of style options available to translators. A translator’s approach to style can be theorized by comparison to the source text (use an equivalent style, use a different existing style, create a new style, use a default ‘translating style’) or by considering how the translator ‘voices’ the translation (use the voice of the source writer, the imagined future readers, the translator, or some other voice).