Making Research Decisions and Choice of Rating Scales

Making Research Decisions Rating Scales As a researcher, one must choose which rating scale is going to be the most effective method. Once choosing the scale, he/she then must decide the amount of choices the subject has. We are going to explore four different scales: 1. Yes/Depends/no, 2. Excellent/Good/Fair/Poor, 3. Excellent/Good/Average/Poor, and 4. Strongly Approve/Approve/Uncertain/Disapprove Strongly Disapprove. I believe that the yes –maybe-no scale is somewhat week unless used in exploratory research (Cooper & Schindler. 2011. p 276). Once some correlation has been made, whether it is positive or negative, it can help guide the research into further research studies. Personally, if I were to look for stronger information I would prefer something with more choices for the subject to have, for often times people will pick the most neutral answer. The four choice response surveys such as excellent, good, fair, and poor are somewhat misleading and in my belief the choices are all lean towards a favorable outcome. Cooper & Schindler addressed this as an unbalanced rating scale (p. 296). However, I do believe that if the majority of subjects picked “poor” the researcher than has a definitive answer. My favorite rating scale is the strongly approve, approve, uncertain, disapprove, and strong disapprove. I think that having the neutral response of “uncertain” is the balancing point for the negative and positive responses. In either the negative or the positive responses, the variation is still available for the researcher to discover levels of approval and disapproval. The only issue that I have found with this particular scale is that there should be another measurement such as age and gender to inform the researcher the specific likes and dislikes about the subject/object at hand (Cooper & Schindler. p 272).

Terms in Review Factors for Secondary Sources Whenever one chooses to use secondary sources in their research he/she must

References: Cooper, D. R., & Schindler, P. S.. (2011). Business Research Methods. (11th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin. Cooper, D.R. & Schindler, P.S.. (2011). Textbook companion website. Retrieved from http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0073373702/student_view0/cases.html