Likert Tipi Ölçeklerin Çocuklarla Kullanımında Yanıt Kategori Sayısının Psikometrik Özelliklere Etkisi

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of number of response options on psychometric properties of Likert-type scale for used with children. Accordingly, 1092 2nd and 3rd grade children from 11 different schools in terms of socioeconomic status received and completed 2-point, 3-point, and 4-point format of the School Attachment Scale for Children and Adolescents approximately three weeks apart. Results revealed that as the number of response options increased the means tended to be decreased, and the distribution tended to be normal. For the 2-point format of the scale most items were below the cut point in terms of discrimination indexes. Compared to 2-point format there was a significant increase in discrimination indexes for the 3-point and 4-point formats and the items’ discrimination indexes were high. It was concluded that reliability coefficient increased with increasing number of response options for all sub-dimensions of the scale. When the validity estimations of the three sub-dimensions were examined for the 2-point, 3-point, and 4-point forms of the scale, it was found that 3-point and 4-point format were appropriate for the validity, and the validity of the 2-point format was weak. There was a significant difference between the scores of different formats of the scale. The most significant difference was found between the 2-point format and 4-point format. It was concluded that the using the 2-point format Likert-type scales with children negatively affected the psychometric properties and that the psychometric properties improved with the increase in the number of response options.