A good Likert scale

When Rensis Likert invented the Likert scale in 1932, he developed a balanced way to gather perceptual information from subjects. These surveys generally offered a statement and asked respondent to rank their agreement with the statement.

The original scale listed five possible responses from subjects. The responses were;

• Strongly Agree
• Agree
• Neither Agree nor Disagree
• Disagree
• Strongly Disagree

This survey, from Sears, is actually pretty even. The middle value on the satisfaction scale is "Average". (Personally I tend to favour four-point or six-point scale as the respondents can't take the easy route and just rank things as "Average", they must be positive or negative.)

Too many of these customer surveys include scales that include a bias that makes the results at best unreliable. I commend Sears on providing a balance scale for their customers to use.