The Use of Thurstone Scales in Surveys

• Outline your Research Question

The first step to create your Thurstone scale is to identify and outline your research question. As you are using a Thurstone scale, you must keep in mind that the statements have to indicate a person’s attitudes on a particular subject.

• Create a Series of Agree-Disagree Statements

The next step is to generate a series of agree-disagree statements that support the subject in varying degrees. It is helpful to include many statements as it will provide you with clearer and more useful data. 

• Assign a Score to each Statement

Once you’ve generated your agree-disagree statements, it is now time to assign each statement a score between 1 to 11 based on how strong you believe the statement is. A high score reflects a more supportive position and a low score reflects a more neutral position. Although you can choose to score the statements yourself, you can achieve a lower bias by employing the consensus of a study group. 

• Ask each Member to Assign a Score

If you’ve employed the use of a study group, you should have each member score the statements based on how strong they believe them to be. You can then calculate the median score of each question and then order the statements in ascending order, from lowest median statements to highest median statements.