Likert-type items are an example of which scale?

Likert-type items are an example of which scale?

• A. Nominal
• B. Ordinal
• C. Interval
• D. Ratio

Answer: (B)

Likert-type items provide a clear order of responses—from strong disagreement to strong agreement—so you can tell which option is higher or lower. But the distance between adjacent categories isn’t guaranteed to be equal. That means you know the ranking, but you don’t know the exact amount of difference between, say, “neutral” and “agree.” This makes the data ordinal: they convey order without assuming precise, equal steps between points. Because of that, you can compare medians or use nonparametric tests that respect order, but you shouldn’t assume equal intervals and compute strict means or use tests that require interval or ratio data on a single item. In practice, some researchers sum multiple Likert items to get a broader score that might be treated as approximately interval, but a single Likert item remains ordinal.

Likert-type items provide a clear order of responses—from strong disagreement to strong agreement—so you can tell which option is higher or lower. But the distance between adjacent categories isn’t guaranteed to be equal. That means you know the ranking, but you don’t know the exact amount of difference between, say, “neutral” and “agree.” This makes the data ordinal: they convey order without assuming precise, equal steps between points.

Because of that, you can compare medians or use nonparametric tests that respect order, but you shouldn’t assume equal intervals and compute strict means or use tests that require interval or ratio data on a single item. In practice, some researchers sum multiple Likert items to get a broader score that might be treated as approximately interval, but a single Likert item remains ordinal.