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RATING SCALE
INTRODUCTION
It is one of the most established question types for online and offline surveys where survey respondents
are expected to rate an attribute or feature. Rating scale is a variant of the popular multiple-choice
question which is widely used to gather information that provides relative information about a specific topic.
Researchers use a rating scale in research when they intend to associate a qualitative measure with the
various aspects of a product or feature. Generally, this scale is used to evaluate the performance of a product
or service, employee skills, customer service performances, processes followed for a particular goal etc.
Rating scale survey question can be compared to a checkbox question but rating scale provides more
information than merely Yes/No.
DEFINITIONS:
 Rating scale is defined as a closed-ended survey question used to represent respondent feedback in a
comparative form for specific particular features/products/services.
 A rating scale is a written list of performance criteria that permits the teacher more than two choices
(e.g., good, fair, poor or excellent, good, fair, poor) to judge student performance of each criterion.
TYPES OF RATING SCALE
Broadly speaking, rating scales can be divided into two categories:
 Ordinal Scales.
 Interval Scales
An ordinal scale is a scale that depicts the answer options in an ordered manner. The difference between
the two answer options may not be calculable but the answer options will always be in a certain innate order.
Parameters such as attitude or feedback can be presented using an ordinal scale.
An interval scale is a scale where not only is the order of the answer variables established but the
magnitude of difference between each answer variable is also calculable. Absolute or true zero value is not
present in an interval scale. Temperature in Celsius or Fahrenheit is the most popular example of an interval
scale. Net Promoter Score, Likert Scale, Bipolar Matrix Table are some of the most effective types of
interval scale.
There are four primary types of rating scales which can be suitably used in an online survey:
 Graphic Rating Scale
 Numerical Rating Scale
 Descriptive Rating Scale
 Comparative Rating Scale
Graphic Rating Scale:
Graphic rating scale indicates the answer options on a scale of 1-3, 1-5, etc. Likert Scale is a popular
graphic rating scale example. Respondents can select a particular option on a line or scale to depict rating.
This rating scale is often implemented by HR managers to conduct employee evaluation.

Numerical Rating Scale:

Numerical rating scale has numbers as answer options and not each number corresponds to a
characteristic or meaning. For instance, a Visual Analog Scale or a Semantic Differential Scale can be
presented using a numerical rating scale.
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Descriptive Rating Scale:

In a descriptive rating scale, each answer option is elaborately explained for the respondents. A numerical
value is not always related to the answer options in the descriptive rating scale. There are certain surveys, for
example, a customer satisfaction survey, which needs to describe all the answer options in detail so that
every customer has thoroughly explained information about what is expected from the survey.
Comparative Rating Scale:
Comparative rating scale, as the name suggests, expects respondents to answer a particular question in
terms of comparison, i.e. on the basis of relative measurement or keeping other
organizations/products/features as a reference.
Examples of Rating Scale Questions
Rating scale questions are widely used in customer satisfaction as well as employee satisfaction surveys
to gather detailed information. Here are a few examples of rating scale questions –
 Degree of Agreement: An organization has been intending to improve the efficiency of their
employees. After organizing multiple courses and certifications for the employees, the management
decides to conduct a survey to know whether employees resonate with their ideology behind these
certifications. They can use a rating scale question such as Even Likert Scale or Odd Likert Scale to
evaluate the degree of agreement.
 Customer Experience: It is important to collect information about customer experience. It is important
for organizations to gather real-time details about product or service purchase experiences. A rating
scale question such as a Semantic Differential Scale can help the organization’s management to collect
and analyze information about customer experience.
 Analyze brand loyalty: Organizations thrive on customer loyalty towards their brand. But brand loyalty
is a factor which needs to be regularly monitored. Using a rating scale question such as Net Promoter
Score can help organizations in garnering real-time details about customer loyalty and brand
shareability. A rating question: “On a scale of 0-10, considering your purchasing experience, how likely
are you to recommend our brand to your friends and colleagues?” can be effective in monitoring
customer satisfaction and loyalty.
LIKERT SCALE
A survey scale represents a set of answer options—either numeric or verbal—that cover a range of
opinions on a topic. It’s always part of a closed-ended question (a question that presents respondents with
pre-populated answer choices).
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The Likert scale, which falls under our definition of a survey scale, is a 5 or 7-point scale that ranges from
one extreme attitude to another, like “extremely likely” to “not at all likely.” Typically, they include a
moderate or neutral midpoint.
How to write Likert Scale survey questions:
Be accurate. Likert-type questions must be phrased correctly in order to avoid confusion and increase
their effectiveness. If you ask about satisfaction with the service at a restaurant, do you mean the service
from valets, the waiters, or the host? All of the above? Are you asking whether the customer was satisfied
with the speed of service, the courteousness of the attendants, or the quality of the food and drinks? Bottom
line: If you can get more specific, there’s a higher chance that your Likert questions will deliver more
valuable responses.
Be careful with adjectives. When you’re using words to ask about concepts in your survey, you need to
be sure people will understand exactly what you mean. Your response options need to include descriptive
words that are easily understandable. There should be no confusion about which grade is higher or bigger
than the next: Is “pretty much” more than “quite a bit”? It’s advisable to start from the extremes
(“extremely,” “not at all”,) set the midpoint of your scale to represent moderation (“moderately,”) or
neutrality (“neither agree nor disagree,”) and then use very clear terms–“very,” “slightly”–for the rest of the
options.
Bipolar or unipolar? Do you want a question where attitudes can fall on two sides of neutrality–“love”
vs. “hate”– or one where the range of possible answers goes from “none” to the maximum? The latter, a
unipolar scale, is preferable in most cases. For example, it’s better to use a scale that ranges from “extremely
brave” to “not at all brave,” rather than a scale that ranges from “extremely brave” to “extremely shy.”
Unipolar scales are just easier for people to think about, and you can be sure that one end is the exact
opposite of the other, which makes it methodologically more sound as well.
Better to ask. Statements carry an implicit risk: Most people will tend to agree rather than disagree with
them because humans are mostly nice and respectful. (This phenomenon is called acquiescence response
bias.) It’s more effective, then, to ask a question than to make a statement.
5 extra tips on how to use Likert scales
 Keep it labeled. Numbered scales that only use numbers instead of words as response options may
give survey respondents trouble, since they might not know which end of the range is positive or
negative.
 Keep it odd. Scales with an odd number of values will have a midpoint. How many options should
you give people? Respondents have difficulty defining their point of view on a scale greater than
seven. If you provide more than seven response choices, people are likely to start picking an answer
randomly, which can make your data meaningless. Our methodologists recommend five scale points
for a unipolar scale, and seven scale points if you need to use a bipolar scale.
 Keep it continuous. Response options in a scale should be equally spaced from each other. This can
be tricky when using word labels instead of numbers, so make sure you know what your words mean.
 Keep it inclusive. Scales should span the entire range of responses. If a question asks how quick your
waiter was and the answers range from “extremely quick” to “moderately quick,” respondents who
think the waiter was slow won’t know what answer to choose.
 Keep it logical. Add skip logic to save your survey takers some time. For example, let’s say you want
to ask how much your patron enjoyed your restaurant, but you only want more details if they were
unhappy with something. Use question logic so that only those who are unhappy skip to a question
asking for improvement suggestions.
VISUAL ANALOG SCALE (VAS) (ALSO KNOWN AS VISUAL ANALOGUE SCALE)
Visual analog scale (VAS) and its corresponding visual analog pain scale, is a psychometric scale that is
generally used in hospitals and clinics by doctors to conduct pain scale surveys to understand varying
degrees of pain or discomfort experienced by a patient. Alternatively, it is also used in surveys to measure
characteristics and attitude across a range of continuous values.
It’s comparable to other linear scales like the Likert scale in terms of the results and the sensitivity of
performance.
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Visual analog scale is frequently used in clinical or community health analysis most often to understand
the gravity or frequency of certain diseases. For example, if a person suffering from pain can rate that pain
from a degree ranging continuously from “no pain” to “pain as bad as it could possibly be”. This scale was
essentially developed to measure the basic element in continuity for pain measurement.
The usage of visual analog scale for pain measurement was reported by Woodforde and Merskey with
options like “no pain” and “the pain is intolerable” as the extremes of the scale. It was first used with
patients with different levels of pain and then was also used with hematology patients who were on their
road to recovery by receiving pharmacologic therapy.
Visual Analog scale has received a critical acclaim from the patients who’ve used it and thus, even older
patients with minimum assistance are able to fill out this scale.
Types of Visual Analog Scale
There are multiple ways in which the Visual Analog Scale is represented:
 Semantic differential (non-slider) visual analog scale: This scale consists of circles at equal
distances and according to the desired option. The respondent will have to select the circle.
 Slider visual analog scale: Respondents can show their level of agreement using a slider which has
adjectives corresponding to the matter under discussion as the two extreme ends of the scale and other
intermediate terms that connect the two. Respondents can submit precise feedback for the survey
question which makes this scale highly popular with respondents and survey makers alike.
Traditionally, it consists of either horizontal Visual Analog Scale or vertical Visual Analog Scale.
Each end of this scale is an extreme label of the symptom that needs to be analyzed. These extreme
labels may differ as for the intent of usage changes. For measurement of the magnitude of pain, the
most used scale is “no pain” (corresponding to the scale of 0) and “pain too intense to be tolerated”
(corresponding to the scale of 100). Intermediate numbers or pointers should be avoided in the VAS to
avoid congregation. Respondents indicate their degree of acceptance to a statement by specifying a
point on the continuous scale in between two endpoints.
Advantages of Visual Analog Scale
 Ease of use: The VAS is extremely convenient to fill out for the respondents and is extremely easy to
keep track of for the survey maker. The evaluation of this scale doesn’t require technical know-how as
it is just the measurement of the distance of the rating scale to calculate the score.
 Record the progress of the patient: It’s an extremely valuable scale to measure the improvement in a
patient’s health over time.
 Super quick to fill out: This scale takes less than a minute to fill out.
 Highly reliable: VAS is extremely reliable to track a patient’s progress by conducting it before and
after a surgery or therapy, especially amongst the literate patients.
SEMANTIC DIFFERENTIAL SCALE
The Semantic Differential Scale is a seven-point rating scale used to derive the respondent’s attitude
towards the given object or event by asking him to select an appropriate position on a scale between two
bipolar adjectives (such as “warm” or “cold”, “powerful” or “weak”, etc.)
Advantages of Sementic differential Scale:
 It identifies particularly favourable or objectionable aspects of multi-faceted issues and concepts.
 Provides and overall response scale score (average) for the concept.
 It is useful in situations with different age groups or cultures because they are easy for the researcher to
construct.
 It can be administered to more than one person at the same time
Disadvantages of Sementic Differential Scale:
 Only useful for questions involving bipolar opposites
 Adjectives may have different meaning for different respondents.
 People may choose not to answer some item, making it hard to achieve a valid score
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The steps to be followed in developing a semantic differential scale are as follows (Payne, 2003):
1. Identify the concept to be rated
The number and type of concepts to be selected will depend upon the intent. It is best to select a group of
related concepts that can be viewed in the same context or frame of reference. Examples of paired opposite
objectives can be used are the following: good bad; sweet-sour; high-low; kind-cruel; pleasant-unpleasant;
valuable-worthless; brave-cowardly; honest-dishonest; healthy-sick; relaxed-tense and many more. The
difficulty of the words should be considered as students cannot use adjectives whose meanings they do not
understand.
2. Choose appropriate bipolar scales.
Only one concept should appear on each page and the scales listed beneath. The polarity of the scales
should be alternated. You may use 5 to 7-point scale. Nonetheless, 10 to 15 adjective pairs would be
sufficient for a group of about 10 related concepts. The younger the group, the fewer concepts and scales
should be used.
3. Design a response sheet.
The cover sheet should include a general orientation to the task and a statement why data are being
collected. The significance of the scale positions should be specified as well as the procedure of recording
responses.
4. Write instructions.
USES OF RATING SCALE
 Gain relative information about a particular subject: In a sample size of 1000 individuals, each
individual will have a different outlook towards a topic. Gathering comparative information about
satisfaction levels, the frequency of use, loyalty and many other such parameters.
 Compare and analyze data: Researchers can collect unbiased data from the target audience and
analyze that using online survey softwares such as QuestionPro. If a rating scale question is used
across a considerable sample size, there are chances that the margin of error in obtained data can be
reduced or eliminated.
 Measure one important product/service element: There are surveys where certain topics need to be
addressed specifically, in order to understand the target market in a better manner. Rating scales can be
implemented in such cases where there are multiple important elements which are to be analyzed. For
instance, to measure degree of agreement, frequency, satisfaction etc.
ADVANTAGES OF RATING SCALE
 Rating scale questions are easy to understand and implement.
 Offers a comparative analysis of quantitative data within the target sample for researchers to make
well-informed decisions.
 Using graphic rating scales, it is easy for researchers to create surveys as they consume the least time
to configure.
 Abundant information can be collected and analyzed using a rating scale.
 The analysis of answer received for rating scale questions is quick and less time-consuming.
 Rating scale is often considered to a standard for collecting qualitative and quantitative information for
research.
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https://www.questionpro.com/blog/rating-scale/
https://www.surveymonkey.com/mp/likert-scale/
https://www.questionpro.com/visual-analogue-scale-vas.html