Missing Data in Likert Ratings: A Comparison of Replacement Methods

The effects of using two methods (item mean and person mean) for replacing missing data in Likert scales were studied. The results showed that both methods were good representations of the original data when both the number of respondents with missing data and the number of items missing were 20% or...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Journal of general psychology Vol. 125; no. 2; pp. 175 - 191
Main Authors Downey, Ronald G., King, Craig V.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Taylor & Francis Group 01.04.1998
Journal Press, etc
Taylor & Francis Inc
Subjects
Adult
Age
Attitude
Attitudes
Data collection
Data Interpretation, Statistical
Datasets
Discriminant Analysis
Female
Humans
Job Satisfaction
Male
Methods
Missing data
Psychometrics - methods
Ratings & rankings
Regression Analysis
Reproducibility of Results
Statistical analysis
Variables
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Summary:The effects of using two methods (item mean and person mean) for replacing missing data in Likert scales were studied. The results showed that both methods were good representations of the original data when both the number of respondents with missing data and the number of items missing were 20% or less. As the numbers of missing items and of respondents with missing data increased for the person mean substitution method, a spurious increase in the inter-item correlations (and, therefore, reliability) for the scale was produced. The item mean substitution reduced the reliability estimates of the scale. These results suggest caution in the use of the person mean substitution method as the numbers of missing items and respondents increase.
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ISSN:0022-1309
1940-0888
DOI:10.1080/00221309809595542