Constructing equal distance response anchor
Abstract
Summated rating scales are so ubiquitous in organizational research that they are used in most every context including agreement, similarity, frequency, amount, and judgment. Summated rating scales are defined by their usage of multiple questions or items in a “Likert-type” format. A long history of research on latent constructs has provided well-delineated guidelines for scale development (c.f., Hinkin, 1998), while there has been comparatively less research on the selection of the actual anchors used in the items. Constructing survey questions with equal distant properties is important if the researcher plans to analyze the data using common parametric statistics. As such, the primary objectives of my research are to a) determine the most common contexts for summated rating scale usage; b) determine the most commonly employed anchors selections within these contexts; c) empirically document the distance between the verbal anchors; d) suggest the optimal verbal anchors for each context based on the aforementioned research and commonly accepted number of anchors per item (5 or 7 choices). The resultant schemata will be a starting point for summated scale construction and will lead to better construction of equal distance anchors for summated rating scales in behavior science research.
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