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Likert Scales: Composition, Opportunities, and Limitations Essay

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Performance analysis and quality monitoring are essential to any organization to ensure programs and different organizational activities are all aligned and functioning according to the desired plan. One of the best indications and commonly used is patients’ satisfaction and feedback; hence, the widespread use of surveying techniques. Likert scales, especially, have been very helpful in this regard due to their simplicity, ease to conduct and interpret, and high specificity as to which aspects are being measured. In fact, surveying before and after implementing changes proves very helpful as it indicates the level of success or failure. So, what is the composition of a Likert scale and what are the opportunities and limitations of this …show more content…

This requires a first question to whether the respondent agree or disagree followed by a second question about the strength of his/her agreement or disagreement.
Development of questions
According to Edmondson, Edwards, and Boyer (2012), there are four steps to compose a likert scale: generating the items, assigning ratings to items, selecting the items, and administering the final scale. The rating step requires judges to give a specific value on a scale from 1 to 5 according the relevance of the item to subject researched. Also, noted by Edmondson, Edwards, and Boyer (2012), the number of scale points have been modified from the originally 5 introduced by Likert, R.
According to Grogan, Conner, Willits, and Norman (1995), in the UK, general practitioners have to have to measure and report patients’ satisfaction. To ensure accuracy and reliability of the collected data, Grogan, Conner, Willits, and Norman (1995) recommend 5 scales to be covered by the survey: doctors, access, nurses, appointments and facilities. It is necessary to emphasize the importance of designing the survey questionnaire to get the desired survey analysis.
Opportunities and limitations Despite all the advantages of using Likert scale, many disadvantages are encountered that limit its use. Simply, it is a bipolar scale that mainly measures agreement or disagreement to a

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