Page 134 - The Handbook for Quality Management a Complete Guide to Operational Excellence

120 I n t e g r a t e d P l a n n i n g U n d e r s t a n d i n g C u s t o m e r E x p e c t a t i o n s a n d N e e d s 121

• Likert and other intensity scale formats. These formats are usually used
to measure the strength of an attitude or an opinion. For example,
Please check the appropriate box in response to the following statement:
“The quality auditor was knowledgeable.”
n Strongly disagree
n Disagree
n Neutral
n Agree
n Strongly agree
Intensity scales are very easy to construct. They are best used
when respondents can agree or disagree with a statement. A
problem is that statements must be worded to present a single side
of an argument. We know that the respondent agrees, but we must
infer what he believes. To compensate for the natural tendency of
people to agree, statements are usually presented using the converse
as well, for instance, “The quality auditor was not knowledgeable.”
When using intensity scales, use an odd-numbered scale, preferably
with five categories. If there is a possibility of bias, order the scale in a
way that favors the hypothesis you want to disprove and handicaps
the hypothesis you want to confirm. This will confirm the hypothesis
with the bias against you—a stronger result. If there is no bias, put the
most undesirable choices first.
• Semantic differential format. In this format, the values that span the
range of possible choices are not completely identified; only the
end points are labeled. For example,

Indicate the number of times you initiated communication with your
customer in the past month.

few many
(2 or less) n n n n n n n (20 or more)
The respondent must infer that the range is divided into equal
intervals. The range seems to work better with seven categories
rather than the usual five.
Semantic differentials are very useful when we do not have
enough information to anchor the intervals between the poles.
However, they are very difficult to write well, and if not written
well the results are ambiguous.

Survey Development Case Study
This actual case study involves the development of a mail survey at a
community hospital. The same process has been used by the author to
develop customer surveys for clientele in a variety of industries.

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