st: RE: Mean test in a Likert Scale

[Dirk Enzmann <dirk.enzmann@uni-hamburg.de>]

A late praise of Nick's reading list - especially pointing to the 
discussions is very helpful!

Dirk

On Fri, 31 Aug 2012 10:53:41 +0100 Nick Cox wrote:

> From: Nick Cox<njcoxstata@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: st: RE: Mean test in a Likert Scale
>
> However, it is possible to broaden the debate in various ways.
>
> First, you will probably be aware that there is a massive literature
> on the relationship (or otherwise) between measurement scales and
> statistics. My own favourites are as below, partly because I think
> both are relatively clear and partly because you can trace dissenting
> discussions:
>
> Velleman, P.F. and Wilkinson, L. 1993.  Nominal, ordinal, interval,
> and ratio typologies are misleading. The American Statistician 47:
> 65-72. See also follow-up under "Letters to the Editor"  in 47(4) and
> 48(1).
>
> [I note incidentally that the comment by David J. Hand is reported as
> if from "David J. Hand and Milton Keynes". That was a mistake: "Milton
> Keynes" is not a person, but a place, the town where Hand's then
> institution, the Open University, is based.]
>
> Hand, D.J. 1996. Statistics and the theory of measurement.
> Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A (Statistics in
> Society) 159: 445-492.
>
> [In the discussion I appear side-by-side with my namesake D.R. Cox
> (the great Sir David, no relative) saying very similar things.]
>
> Second, at the level of descriptive statistics the usual argument from
> purists is that means are not justified for Likert scales but that
> medians are. That still leaves scope for interpolating medians and so
> using more of the information in the data. See the thread started by
> J. Taggert Brooks at
>
> http://www.stata.com/statalist/archive/2009-01/msg00652.html
>
> and -iquantile- from SSC. The link in the help file to that thread is
> broken and will be fixed by correcting the help file.

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Dr. Dirk Enzmann
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