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Abstract

Likert type scales are commonly used in social sciences. Most of the Likert scales include both positively- and negatively worded items. However, the use of negatively worded (reversed) items is supported by some researchers but not others. This study analyzes the reversed items in educational settings. The school age, self-rating version of the Dimensions of Mastery Questionnaire (DMQ 17) was used. The sample consisted of 7261 Hungarian students, age 10 to 16. An iteration method was developed and used to filter our presumably invalid responders. The analysis is based on the empirical inconsistency between the reversed and the positively worded items. The iteration eliminated step-by-step the possibly invalid questionnaires. The reliabilities of the scales were increased with the iteration process. After eliminating about 20% of the sample, the reliabilities were somewhat higher with all scales having acceptable alphas. If one would like to use this iteration method for eliminating the invalid responders, he or she needs to oversample the accessible population. Based on this results we eliminated the reversed items form the new DMQ persistence and pleasure scales.

Keywords: reliability; Likert-scale; reversed items; invalid responses; mastery motivation

Introduction

Likert-scale questionnaires frequently have items that are worded negatively but later recoded so they can be combined with positively-worded items to form a summated scale. These negative items are intended to encourage the respondents to read all items carefully rather than use a set pattern of responding. However, the use of negative items in questionnaire studies poses problems because some respondents don't read well or carefully. Instead, these respondents answer the negatively-worded items as if they were positively-worded or at least not consistent with the average of the positive items in the same scale or subscale. This inconsistent responding lowers the validity of the scale and also the internal consistency reliability (Cronbach's alpha) of the scale.

Likert scales

Rating scales are well known in the social sciences (Dillman, Smyth, & Christian, 2014; Gliner, Morgan, & Leech, 2017; Nunnally, 1978). One of the most frequently used rating techniques was developed more than 80 years ago by Likert (1932). He initially developed this method as a way of measuring attitudes about particular groups, institutions, or concepts. Researchers often develop their own scales for measuring attitudes or values, but...

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