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Fri, Oct 7, 8:30 - 8:55, Senate A Paper (refereed)

Recommended Citation: Tastle, W J, J Russell, and M J Wierman. A New Measure to Analyze Student Performance Using the Likert Scale. In The Proceedings of the Information Systems Education Conference 2005, v 22 (Columbus OH): §2142. ISSN: 1542-7382. (A later version appears in Information Systems Education Journal 6(35). ISSN: 1545-679X.)

A New Measure to Analyze Student Performance Using the Likert Scale

Refereed

7 pages

William J. Tastle    [a1] [a2]
Dept of Business Administration
Ithaca College    [u1] [u2]
Ithaca, New York, USA    [c1] [c2]

Jack Russell    [a1] [a2]
College of Business
Northwestern State University    [u1] [u2]
Natchitoches, Louisiana, USA    [c1] [c2]

Mark J. Wierman    [a1] [a2]
Dept of Computer Science
Creighton University    [u1] [u2]
Omaha, Nebraska, USA    [c1] [c2]

Likert scale measures are commonly used in assessing student performance as well as student perceptions. They are particularly good in gathering data to subjective questions, but being able to compare and contrast multiple Likert data has been a challenge for the typical academic. Researchers and educators alike frequently assign a numerical value to each Likert category, and then take a weighted average to get some general overall value that can be used for comparative purposes. Such efforts are fraught with error, since Likert scales are ordinal measures. A new measure is presented here and discussed, and an example of its use is provided. The new measure is called the Consensus Measure; when used in conjunction with a weighted mean it is easy to intuitively grasp the dispersion of values around any mean. Ranking sets of Likert scale data is easily accomplished and philosophically established.

Keywords: consensus measure, dispersion, weighted mean, weighted standard deviation

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