Rating Scale in a Survey – What Is and How to Use It in Online Research?

If you are just starting your adventure with online research some specific phrases and terms may seem confusing. Most often, however, it is not about complicated issues, but just fragments of the form or survey, named in a specific way. This applies to the term ‘rating scale’, so we will briefly explain to you what it means in the context of surveys.

What is the rating scale in a survey?

When choosing a survey containing closed or semi-open questions you should know what the rating scale is in this context. In simple terms, it is simply a list of possible answers that the respondent can provide to a question asked in an online form or survey.

You can choose the type of rating scales according to your individual needs. Due to the possibility of selecting only one or more answers, we divide them into disjunctive (single-choice questions) and conjunctive where it is possible to select several options.

The most popular types of rating scales (especially in social research) include the Likert scale which is a method of measuring the respondent’s attitude, based on the question about the degree of acceptance of a phenomenon or view (disagree/agree, dislike/like, definitely not/definitely yes, etc.).

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Urszula Kamburov-Niepewna
Ula is a Content Manager with extensive experience in journalism and SEO copywriting. She is a specialist in creating content in HR and Marketing research, Customer Experience, and User Experience. She has been associated with Startquestion for five years and currently leads the Content Marketing team there. After work, Ula is an obsessive reader, a huge Harry Potter fan, and a traveler who grabs every opportunity to see a little bit of the world and taste (usually more than a little) good food.