Psychology research · Reference
What is a Likert scale?
A Likert scale is a psychometric rating scale used in surveys to measure attitudes or opinions, in which respondents indicate how far they agree or disagree with a statement on an ordered set of response options.
Definition and origin
The Likert scale was developed by Rensis Likert in his 1932 work on measuring attitudes. Each Likert item presents a statement and a symmetric set of response options, typically running from strong disagreement to strong agreement with a neutral midpoint. A true "Likert scale" is the sum or average of several such items designed to measure the same underlying attitude, whereas a single item is more precisely called a Likert-type item. Common formats use five or seven points, sometimes with a neutral middle option and sometimes forced-choice without one.
Items, response options and data
Respondents read each statement and select the option that best reflects their position. Numbers are assigned to the options (for example 1 to 5), and for a multi-item scale these are combined into a total score intended to capture the attitude more reliably than any single question.
A central methodological point is that the raw responses are ordinal: the categories are ordered, but the psychological distance between adjacent points is not guaranteed to be equal. The gap between "agree" and "strongly agree" may not equal the gap between "neutral" and "agree".
Analysis cautions
Because Likert responses are ordinal, analysts debate how to summarise them. Reporting medians, modes, and frequency distributions, or using non-parametric methods, is well suited to single items. Treating responses as if they were on an interval scale — for example, averaging them or applying parametric tests — is common but contested, and is generally more defensible for summed multi-item scales than for single items. Visualising the full distribution, rather than only the mean, gives a more honest picture of how respondents answered.
Significance for research
Likert scales are among the most common instruments in survey research, psychology, and the social sciences because they are simple to administer and to understand. Their quality depends on careful item wording, a balanced set of options, and evidence that the items hang together to measure one construct — assessed through reliability statistics such as Cronbach's alpha and through validity analysis. Used well, they turn subjective attitudes into structured, comparable data.
Key facts
At a glance
- Type: psychometric rating scale for attitudes
- Introduced by: Rensis Likert, 1932
- Typical format: 5 or 7 ordered response points
- Common anchors: strongly disagree to strongly agree
- Data level: ordinal (ordered categories)
- Scale vs item: a Likert scale sums several Likert-type items
Common questions
FAQ
What is a Likert scale used for?+
It is used in surveys to measure attitudes, opinions, or perceptions by asking how strongly people agree or disagree with statements. Combining several items into one scale gives a more reliable measure of an underlying attitude than a single question.
Is Likert scale data ordinal or interval?+
Individual Likert responses are ordinal: the options are ordered, but the distances between them are not guaranteed to be equal. Researchers sometimes treat summed multi-item scales as approximately interval, but this is a debated assumption rather than a settled fact.
Who invented the Likert scale?+
It is named after the American psychologist Rensis Likert, who introduced it in his 1932 publication on the measurement of attitudes.
The step most authors miss
Doing CRediT right? Don’t stop at the statement.
A CRediT statement credits you inside one paper. The recognition CRediT was built for happens when those roles are tied to you, persistently. Sign in with your ORCID — free — and claim your CRediT contributions on casrai.org, the home of the standard. They become a verified, portable part of your identity, not a line that disappears into one PDF.
Free: claim your contributions, then export a journal-ready CRediT statement, schema.org structured data, JATS XML, CSV or BibTeX — and preview your public profile. A membership publishes that profile publicly and verifies the journals you serve.
