Likert Step Descriptions for Five Steps

EDUR 9131
Advanced Educational Research

Likert Step Descriptions for Five Steps
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The typical Likert scaled item uses the descriptions Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree, as illustrated below.

	Strongly Disagree	Disagree	Neither Agree nor Disagree/Undecided	Agree	Strongly Agree
Statement Here	1	2	3	4	5

The middle category, neither agree nor disagree/undecided, is sometimes believed to be problematic since it does not appear to fit the scale. Other options for labeling the middle category include:

"a bit of both"

"need more information"

"about 50:50"

In addition, some argue that a 7-step scale provides more reliability, and research indicates this to be true. One easy method for extending the 5 point scale to 7 points is to anchor each end with "very." For example, "Very strongly disagree" and "Very strongly agree."

An option is to have only three descriptors, such as:

	Very Poor		Average		Very Good
Statement Here	1	2	3	4	5

Below are a number of step descriptors for a five-step item.

1	2	3	4	5
Poor	Fair	Good	Very Good	Excellent
Very Poor	Poor	Moderate	Good	Very Good
Very Easy	Easy	Medium	Hard	Very Hard
Never	Seldom	Sometimes	Often	Always
0 - 10% of the time	10-40%	40-60%	60-90%	90-100%
Rarely or Never	Infrequently	Occasionally	Frequently	Very Frequently/Almost Always [or Most or All of the Time]
Not At All	To a Small Degree	To a Moderate Degree	To a Considerable Degree	To a Great Degree
Not at all Satisfied	A Little Satisfied	Moderately Satisfied	Satisfied	Very Satisfied
Not at all Helpful	A Little Helpful	Somewhat Helpful	Very Helpful	Extremely Helpful
once a term or less	about once a month	about every week	most lessons	every lesson
all the time	most of the time	often	occasionally	never
Unsatisfactory	Poor	So-so	Good	Outstanding
Completey dissatisfied	Somewhat dissatisfied	Moderately Satisfied	Satisfied	Completely satisfied
disfavor	tend to disfavor	neither favor nor disfavor	tend to favor	favor
insufficient	somewhat insufficient	neither insufficient nor sufficient	somewhat sufficient	sufficient
much more	more	about the same	less	much less
Seldom 0-25%	Sometimes 25-50%	Often 50-75%	Most of the time 75-100%
never	rarely	sometimes	often	always

Last revised on 11 January, 2018 08:29 AM