The Use of Rating Scale in Quantitative Research on Social Sciences, Humanities, Hotel and Tourism Study

Abstract

The Rating Scale was frequently used in Social Sciences, Humanities, Hotel and Tourism quantitative research design, especially the 1-5 Likert Scale.  And it was used both as the ordinal scale and the interval scale. Rensis Likert who developed 1-5 Likert Scales confirmed that it was Interval rating scales which the distance between each number is assumed equally. However, some used the rating scale as an ordinal scale; but on later computation, it was used as an interval scale, because they could not apply the number of ranks in an ordinal scale as a real number for any mathematic computations.  Furthermore, the problems arise again whether they should interpret by dividing each class in an interval scale equally or not.  The answer is they were accepted both, equally assumed and equally not assumed, depended on the framework of the objectives and the subject be studied.