A Likert scale survey question asks respondents how strongly they agree, disagree, or feel about a statement. It uses a fixed set of ordered answer options. It is one of the most common ways to measure attitudes, opinions, and satisfaction, because it turns a feeling into a number you can compare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Writing a good one takes more than adding five radio buttons. Wording, answer labels, and order all shift the results. In this blog, we cover how to write, structure, and analyze Likert scale survey questions that measure what you intend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
A Likert scale survey question is a closed-ended question that asks respondents to rate agreement, frequency, importance, or satisfaction on an ordered scale. A typical range runs from “Strongly disagree” to “Strongly agree.” Each answer option carries a numeric value, so you can measure attitudes quantitatively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Organizational psychologist Rensis Likert<\/a> introduced the technique in his 1932 paper, A Technique for the Measurement of Attitudes<\/a>. He scored each response to a statement and combined those scores into an overall attitude measure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His core idea still holds. An attitude is too broad to capture with one question, so you measure it with several statements. You will see this approach in:<\/p>\n\n\n\n A Likert item is a single statement with ordered answers. A Likert scale is a set of related items whose scores you combine. People use the terms interchangeably, and that habit causes analysis mistakes. For the wider topic, see our guide on what a Likert scale is. Boone and Boone note in Analyzing Likert Data<\/a> that Likert-type data and Likert scale data call for different analysis procedures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Likert scale vs Likert item vs rating scale<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n