Metadata
- Author: Allen Downey
- Full Title:: The Mean of a Likert Scale?
- Category:: 🗞️Articles
- URL:: https://allendowney.substack.com/p/the-mean-of-a-likert-scale
- Finished date:: 2024-05-04
Highlights
Computing the mean of an ordinal variable can be a quick way to make comparisons between groups or show trends over time. The computation implicitly assumes that the points on the scale are equally spaced, which is not true in general, but in many cases it is close enough. However, even when the mean (or standard deviation) is a reasonable choice, there is often an alternative that is easier to interpret in context. It’s always good to look at the distribution before choosing a summary statistic. If it’s bimodal, the mean is probably not the best choice. (View Highlight)