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The blog of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine Evaluation Office

How Many Points on YOUR Rating Scale?

In survey design workshops, we are often asked if rating scales designed to measure respondents’ opinions and attitudes should have an odd number of points, including a neutral mid-point (i.e., “Neither agree or disagree”); or if it’s better to have an even number of points, without a mid-point.  Our answer, which probably frustrates our participants to no end, is “it depends.”  You have to clearly think through what a “neutral” answer means and choose accordingly. Here is a link to a clever blog entry by Jane Davidson that makes this point very well and gives you ways to think about how many points your rating scales should have:

Boxers or briefs? Why having a favorite response scale makes no sense

(There are some insightful readers’ comments to this blog post that you might find interesting as well.)

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Last updated on Saturday, 23 November, 2013

Funded by the National Library of Medicine under contract # HHS-N-276-2011-00008-C.
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