Attitude Scale Assessment

Attitude Scale Assessment

The objective of this assignment, done for my COMM 333 (Persuasion) course, is to critically analyze the scope of two attitude scales. The scales I will be analyzing are the Likert scale and the Semantic Differential Scales.

Likert Scale

The Likert scale is a 5-point rating system that is commonly used to measure attitudes. This scale is seen across various fields including marketing, psychology, and academia and typically provides a range of response options from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”. This type of scale is highly adaptable and some common examples we see of this scale are used in customer satisfaction surveys or market research.

Overall simplicity is one of the main benefits of utilizing this scale for your research. It is easy to construct but it can also be altered to your specifications. Because of this straightforward and easy survey style, participants will be more likely to complete and understand the scale. An example of using a Likert scale successfully would be when you want to gain insight into customer satisfaction after a purchase. You would administer a question like, “Please rate your level of satisfaction with our service” (Maniyamkott, 2022). Which will then allow you to get feedback from customers. Other uses could be to assess public opinion on a political issue.

One of the many criticisms of the Likert scale is that response bias can ruin data collected through this way of research. Participants can experience survey fatigue or social desirability when completing responses. A common example we see of social desirability bias is one that was mentioned in our coursework, job interviews. One of the main places that people tend to behave differently due to the feeling of being judged. Also, by looking at the Theory of Reasoned Action it is known that the participants' ultimate attitude towards the topic can persuade them to respond the way they chose as well, which can affect the data collected by using the Likert Scale.

Semantic Differential Scale

The Semantic Differential Scale assesses participants' perception by using opposing adjectives. This is different than a Likert scale because it is focused more on the connotative meaning of attitudes, so it usually has a larger range of response options. Whereas the Likert scale captures vague responses, the Semantic Differential scale can better describe the participants attitudes towards a specific area.

The benefits of using this scale are that participants have the option to better express their opinion. In the previous example I stated that you can measure just overall customer satisfaction, with the Semantic Differential scale you could assess different areas of satisfaction such as the service, products, pricing. This type of data can help improve the quality of the store.

Some problems with this type of scale include acquiescence bias, which can happen with any other survey. Because this scale is more in-depth and not as straightforward as the Likert scale, it is more likely the problem could arise where participants are overly agreeable to any question asked. ELM suggests that participants can process information in different ways. For example, in a survey about customer satisfaction, when customers are asked how the food was at a popular and aesthetically pleasing fast food spot that was seen all over social media, the attitudes would then be measured through peripheral processing.

After doing research and analyzing these two attitude assessments, I think it's beneficial to highlight the importance of choosing the right measurement tool based on the audience you are researching. Understanding the participants cognitive dimensions and how it influences their behavior can be great for market research if you are trying to build your company or just understand whatever audience you are conducting research on.

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References

Maniyamkott, M. (2022, October 6). 7 reasons why likert scale is the next best thing since sliced bread. SurveySparrow. https://surveysparrow.com/blog/7-reasons-why-likert-scale-is-the-next-best-thing-since-sliced-bread/