Don’t Let Your Likert Scales Grow up to be Visual Analog Scales: Understanding the Relationship between Number of Response Categories and Measurement Error

Name: Don’t Let Your Likert Scales Grow up to be Visual Analog Scales: Understanding the Relationship between Number of Response Categories and Measurement Error
Start: 2025-05-25T00:00:00+00:00
Location: Washington, DC

Sunday, May 25, 2025 · Washington, DC

Submitted Talk · Sunday, May 25, 2025 · 9:15 AM – 9:30 AM ET

Subject Area: Methodology

We investigated the optimal number of response categories for Likert and Visual Analog Scales (VAS) using simulations. Reliability plateaus after 4–10 categories; however, when measurement error increases with more response options, reliability declines, and converting Likert items to VAS can drastically decrease reliability.

Chairs & Discussants

Siqi SunSpeaker
University of Virginia
Karen SchmidtAuthor
University of Virginia
Teague Henry*Author
University of Virginia

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Don’t Let Your Likert Scales Grow up to be Visual Analog Scales: Understanding the Relationship between Number of Response Categories and Measurement Error

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