Hello! I'm currently doing my MSc dissertation and trying to analyse my questionnaire on empowering outcomes and processes (van Uden-Kraan, 2009). I have computed my individual questions (which were on likart scales 1-5) into new variables for the outcome and processes however spss has made the means strange numbers ie 1.53 or 3.68. I wanted it to stay 1-5 so that i could find out the most common empowering process for example.
If this makes sense is anyone able to guide me in the right direction please?
Using mean as an average for Likert scales is dodgy because a mean assumes continuous data where the decimal fractions you have got would be meaningful whereas they obviously aren't in your case because there is no meaningful inter-category value. I think this link explains it better than I can http://achilleaskostoulas.com/2013/02/13/on-likert-scales-ordinal-data-and-mean-values/. Solution basically is to use median or mode to find the average for Likert scale data. Median is definitely available in SPSS, I assume mode is as well.
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