Uses and abuses of the Likert scale: bibliometric study in the proceedings of ENANPAD from 2010 to 2015

Abstract

This paper aimed at verifying if the original assumptions of the Likert scale were or were not considered in the articles published in the proceedings of EnANPAD from 2010 to 2015. This is a quantitative, exploratory and bibliometric research with data processed on Microsoft Excel and SPSS, using frequency distribution and arithmetic means. The research corpus derived from a search in the congress’ proceedings by using the Likert denomination when it was included in the papers’ abstract, methodology and/or results. From the 5342 articles published in the period, 742 (13,89%) mentioned such denomination. To verify if the scale’s original assumptions were considered, we tried to identify the following keywords: “sum”; “summation” or “indirect scale”. The results showed that in 728 articles (98,1%), the Likert scale original assumptions were not considered, and most of the authors justified that they were using a Likert-type scale. It must be emphasized that there are important differences between the (original) Likert and Likert-type scales, however, it was verified that its use in the analyzed sample was most often erroneous. This reality shows that, although very popular, it is necessary an elucidation on the original assumptions of the Likert scale to the Brazilian academy, in order to avoid future misconceptions in its use.