QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE MEASUREMENTdisagree with a statement. Other modifications are
possible; people might be asked whether they ap-
prove or disapprove or whether they believe some-
thing is “almost always true” (see Example Box 5,
Examples of Types of Likert Scales).
To create a Likert scale, you need a minimum
of two categories, such as “agree” and “disagree.”
Using only two choices creates a crude measure and
forces distinctions into only two categories. It is
usually better to use four to eight categories. You
can combine or collapse categories after the data
have been collected, but once you collect them
using crude categories, you cannot make them
more precise later. You can increase the number of
categories at the end of a scale by adding “strongly
agree,” “somewhat agree,” “very strongly agree,”
and so forth. You want to keep the number of
choices to eight or nine at most. More distinctions
than that are not meaningful, and people will be-
come confused. The choices should be evenlyEXAMPLE BOX 4
Standardization and the Real Winners at the 2000 OlympicsSports fans in the United States were jubilant about
“winning” at the 2000 Olympics by carrying off the
most gold medals. However, because they failed to
standardize,the “win” is an illusion. Of course, the
world’s richest nation with the third largest popula-
tion does well in one-on-one competition among all
nations. To see what really happened, one must
standardize on a base of the population or wealth.
Standardization yields a more accurate picture by
adjusting the results as if the nations had equal
populations and wealth. The results show that the
Bahamas, with fewer than 300,000 citizens (smaller
than a medium-sized U.S. city), proportionately won
the most gold. Adjusted for its population size or
wealth, the United States is not even near the top; it
appears to be the leader only because of its great
size and wealth. Sports fans in the United States can
perpetuate the illusion of being at the top only if they
ignore the comparative advantage of the United
States.TOP TEN GOLD MEDAL WINNING COUNTRIES AT THE 2000 OLYMPICS IN SYDNEY
Unstandardized Rank Standardized Rank*RANK COUNTRY TOTAL COUNTRY TOTAL POPULATION GDP
1 USA 39 Bahamas 1. 4 33.3 20.0
2 Russia 32 Slovenia 2 10 10. 0
3 China 28 Cuba 11 9.9 50.0
4 Australia 16 Norway 4 9.1 2.6
5 Germany 14 Australia 16 8.6 4.1
6 France 13 Hungry 8 7. 9 16. 7
7 Italy 13 Netherlands 12 7. 6 3.0
8 Netherlands 12 Estonia 1 7.1 20.0
9 Cuba 11 Bulgaria 5 6.0 41. 7
10 Britain 11 Lithuania 2 5.4 18. 2
EU15** 80 EU15 80 2.1 0.9
USA 39 1. 4 0.4
*Population is gold medals per 10 million people and GDP is gold medals per $10 billion.
**EU15 is the 15 nations of the European Union treated as a single unit.
Source:Adapted from The Economist, October 7, 2000, p. 52. Copyright 2000 by Economist Newspaper Group. Reproduced
with permission of Economist Newspaper Group in the format Textbook via Copyright Clearance Center.