The Likert scale was named after psychologist Resins Likert. It is a measuring scale or tool used to determine the opinion of people on a subject. It can also assess the behavior, perceptions of people on an issue. It consists of many questions to know the extent of agreement or disagreement of masses on a subject, product, or service. Different variations of the Likert scale are in use to understand views and perspectives about a brand. 

Likert scales are normally used for market researches. They consist of five possible choices during the research. These choices are as follows: 

• Strongly agree
• Agree
• Neutral
• Disagree
• Strongly disagree

Numbered or labelled scales are recommended, as words make it difficult for people to respond. People can’t express their feelings or emotions through words that’s why sometime they buy online writing services. The numbered scales should be evenly spaced. The coding of numbers should be mentioned on top of the Likert scale. For example, 1 is for strongly agree, 2 for agree and so on. 

Types of Likert Scale 

This scale is popular among researchers to collect data opinions about any subject. Researchers divide this scale into two types: 

• Even Likert Scale 

Researchers use this type of scale when there is no neutral option. People are to respond either agree or disagree on the subject. 

• 4 point Likert scale of importance: in this type of Likert scale researcher doesn’t provide the neutral option. People have to rate the degree of importance through the four provided options. 
• 8-point likelihood of recommendation: this scale differs from the above r point scale. It has eight different options to offer. Respondents choose one of those eight options. This way researcher collects feedback from customers or people. 

• Odd Likert scale

This scale gives the participants a choice of responding neutrally. Unlike Even Likert scale, researchers provide the option of being neutral. The odd Likert scale has three types:

• 5-point Likert scale 
• 7-point Likert scale 
• 9-point Likert scale 

5 point liker is common with remaining neutral if you don’t want to choose extreme options. The 9-point Likert scale is very uncommon, but still, you can use it. 

Properties of Likert Scale 

The Likert scale came into existence in 1932 in the form of a 5-point Likert scale. It is still used in its original form today. This scale ranges from general to specific topics. Respondents show their agreement or disagreement with the topic based on this scale. Some properties of the Likert scale are as follows: 

• Items or questions should be easily related to the answers. The relationship between item and sentence is not important. The important thing is that answer should be related to the question. 
• The questions have different answers. They should have two extreme positions and an intermediate one. The intermediate answer serves as a neutral option between two extremes. 
• Although most Likert scales consist of five options, adding extra options will help generate more precise data. So, you can say there is a direct relation between precision and the number of answer options. The more the number of answer options, the more is the precision. 
• The reliability of the scale increases by adding two more rows of answer options. Like we can add, “very strongly agreed.” At the start and opposite at the bottom. This scale reaches the upper limit of reliability. 
• Likert recommend using a scale as wide as possible. 
• To get the opinions of the people, scale often doesn’t contain a neutral option. 

Advantages of Likert Scale 

• People easily understand the Likert scale. Because there are no such complex things involved in it. It’s pretty easy to choose out of five available choices. 
• The speed of collecting data is good. This scale is faster and quicker to collect data in a short period. 
• It is a universally accepted scale and can b easily understood. It also its applications in various customer satisfaction surveys. 
• The researcher can conduct statistical analysis on the gathered results. You can run an analysis even if there is no apparent relation between items and answers. 
• Likert scale also offers the ranking of the reviews received from the people. It will rank the answers quite easily. 
• Respondents can easily understand the idea behind the survey and quickly answer the questions. 
• Through the answers of the customers, companies can make future adjustments to their products. For example, a company runs a survey to know customers’ opinions on the packing of their product. Some will say it’s good; some will say it should be modified.  Hence, a company will run statistical analysis. Based on the analysis results, they will decide whether to change the packing design of the product or not. 
• This scale is ideal to evaluate the results of a large number of respondents. 
• Researchers can create new market strategies based on the results of the surveys.

Disadvantages of Likert Scale

As there are advantages of the Likert scale, there are disadvantages too. Some of the disadvantages are as follows: 

• There lies a minor quantitative difference between data of 5-point and 7-point Likert scale. 
• 7-point Likert questions suffer from the bias in response style. 
• Respondents can lie in the questionnaire to keep their biasness which could lead to wrong conclusions. 
• Sometimes, respondents may misunderstand the question and give the wrong feedback. 
• Surveys and questionnaires can not determine the emotions of the people taking part in the study. Because in the face-to-face study, you can read the facial expressions of the respondent. 
• Skipping of questions can be a problem if questions are not marked as mandatory to answer. For this, questions need to be precise and short. 
• The respondents might have different feelings and emotions for a question. But this scale restricts them to only five options. 

Conclusion 

Likert type scales are used regularly. People know much about them. Like how to give answers and record them for later use. It is good to see a large sample size because this increases the validity of the results.