The influence of labels associated with anchor points of Likert-type response scales in survey questionnaires.

Survey questionnaires are among the most used data gathering techniques in the social sciences researchers' toolbox and many factors can influence respondents' answers on items and affect data validity. Among these factors, research has accumulated which demonstrates that verbal and numeric labels associated with item's response categories in such questionnaire may influence substantially the way in which respondents operate their choices within the proposed response format. In line with these findings, the focus of this article is to use Andrich's Rating scale model to illustrate what kind of influence the quantifier adverb "totally," used to label or emphasize extreme categories, could have on respondents' answers.