Teaching · For Teachers

Match the answers to the question.

Say what the item measures, who answers it and how you will analyze it. The guide writes out the scale, names its level of measurement and tells you which statistics suit it.

Choose a scaleWhat you get
$12one-time · every device you sign in on
Buy · $12

Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Or get it in the For Teachers toolkit, $79 for 72 items.

The scale chooser

One choice per item or item set. The example is made up.

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What you get

Teaching · For Teachers$12 · included with Classroom and Whole-school licenses

What you finish with
The scale with every label written out, its level of measurement, the statistics that suit it and the mistakes to avoid.
Who it is for
Teacher-researchers, program evaluators, education graduate students and school survey teams.
Format
Browser form. One saved choice per item; printed with the scale or as a blank decision sheet; CSV across items; export and import a file.
Access
$12 one-time, yours on every device you sign in on; the tool opens once you are signed in with it. Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Also in the For Teachers toolkit ($79) and the Teaching Suite pass ($199), and 1 more bundle. Everything you type stays in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives
The For Teachers space in Caveat Teaching.
Support
Questions about an order, access or a correction: team@caveatacademic.com.
ordered, labeled, and not quite a ruler
Drawn for this page. Rating scales put answers in order, but the steps between them are not guaranteed to be equal.

How to use it

  1. Start a choice with a code for the item.
  2. Paste the item and say what it measures.
  3. Describe the respondents, the mode and whether a middle and a does-not-apply option fit.
  4. Copy the scale into your survey exactly as written.
  5. Analyze with the statistics listed for its level.

Choose a scale

The rules behind the choice

Ask what you mean

Questions that use a scale for the thing itself (how often, how much, how good) get more accurate answers than agree-disagree statements, which pull people toward agreeing.

Levels of measurement

Categories are nominal, ordered answers ordinal, equal steps interval and true counts ratio. A single rating item is ordinal; several items summed into a scale score are often treated as interval.

What this is not

A validity check. Whether an item measures what you intend comes from piloting and evidence, not from the scale alone.

Sources

  1. Saris, W. E., Revilla, M., Krosnick, J. A., & Shaeffer, E. M. (2010). Comparing questions with agree/disagree response options to questions with item-specific response options. Survey Research Methods, 4(1), 61–79.
  2. Krosnick, J. A., & Presser, S. (2010). Question and questionnaire design. In P. V. Marsden & J. D. Wright (Eds.), Handbook of Survey Research (2nd ed., pp. 263–313). Emerald.
  3. Stevens, S. S. (1946). On the theory of scales of measurement. Science, 103(2684), 677–680.
  4. Mellor, D., & Moore, K. A. (2014). The use of Likert scales with children. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 39(3), 369–379.

The example item is made up. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.