Plotting Likert and Other Rating Scales PRESENTED BY Naomi B. Robbins NJTUG | Hoboken | January 31, 2012 | Copyright © 2012 Naomi B. Robbins.

Plotting Likert and Other Rating Scales

PRESENTED BY

Naomi B. Robbins

NJTUG | Hoboken | January 31, 2012 | Copyright © 2012 Naomi B. Robbins

What are rating scales?

©2011 Tableau Software Inc. All rights reserved.

Psychometric scales commonly used in questionnaires

• LikertStrongly disagree, disagree, no opinion, agree, strongly agree

• Semantic differential scales Other bipolar adjectives; e.g., not important to very important, evil to good.

Questions we asked

• How are rating scales plotted now?

• Which type of graph do we like best?

• Can we plot it using Tableau Software?

How are rating scales plotted now?

• Tables• Grouped bar chart• Divided bars• Multiple pie charts• Waffle charts

• Ribbon charts• Radar Plots• Showing average for each question• Diverging stacked bars

Table: Oct. 2005 Amstat News

.

Figure: Oct. 2005 Amstat News

Grouped bar

Mean for each category

Divided bar

Multiple pies

Multiple pies by count

Waffle chart

Academic                                                                                                                                                                                              

Business/ Industry                                                                                                                                                                                              

Government

Source of waffle chart

Ribbon from Excel

Ribbon chart

Radar

Diverging stacked bar chart

Features of diverging stacked bar charts

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1. Centered at 0, with reference line at 0

2. Reference line behind bars so that “no opinions” not split

3. Symmetric intensity of colors in each direction

4. Colors that are accessible to those with color vision deficiencies

5. Sort by right-hand side

6. Parallel one-dimensional bars for each question or group

Adding other categories

Contact info:

©2011 Tableau Software Inc. All rights reserved.

Naomi B. Robbins

naomi@nbr-graphs.com

http://www.nbr-graphs.com

(973)694-6009

Twitter: @nbrgraphs

Author: Creating More Effective Graphs (Wiley 2005)

©2011 Tableau Software Inc. All rights reserved.

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