The Impact of Scale Direction on Data Quality

• Published in: Survey research methods Vol. 19; no. 2
• Main Authors: Ting Yan, Alexandru Cernat, Florian Keusch
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: European Survey Research Association 08.08.2025
• Subjects: data quality; measurement equivalence; reliability; satisficing; scale direction; validity

Survey literature has documented a tendency for respondents to select scale options closer to the start of a scale, resulting in scale direction effects. This paper builds upon the literature and expands it in two important ways. First, we experimentally manipulated scale length, scale labeling, and...