[R] Invert Likert-Scale Values

[William Revelle]

Alexis and John,

To reverse a Likert like item, subtract the item from the maximum 
acceptable value + the minimum acceptable value,
That is, if
x <- 1:8
xreverse <- 9-x

Bill


At 2:16 PM -0700 8/4/07, Alexis Delevett wrote:
>Thank you John, that should definitely do the trick!
>
>Furthermore, I believe that this will help me research
>the available resources more effectively in the future
>-- instead of researching a specific problem (e.g.,
>"invert Likert-Scale items"), I might try starting out
>with a more general problem (like "recode values") in
>order to work my way towards a solution.
>
>
>
>--- John Kane <jrkrideau at yahoo.ca> wrote:
>
>>  Will ?recode in the car package do what you want?
>>   x <- 1:4
>>   recode(x, "1='4';2='3' ;3='2'; 4='1'")
>>
>>
>>  --- Alexis Delevett <adelevet at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>  > Hi!
>>  >
>>  > I am using R to process some community survey
>>  data.
>>  > Several item responses are recorded via a 7-point
>>  > Likert-Scale. As I have coded the responses, 1
>>  > represents high agreement, and 7 high
>>  disagreement.
>>  > This of course impacts the coefficients in a
>>  linear
>>  > regression (of example agreement to
>>  self-perception
>>  > measures on housing satisfaction). For some
>>  > purposes, in order to make the coefficients more
>>  > accessible to the reader, I would like to invert
>>  the
>>  > item values, i.e. to arrive at 1 for high
>>  > disagreement, and 7 for high agreement (such that
>>  > the linear regression would express something like
>>  > "the higher the agreement on A, the greater the
>>  B).
>>  >
>>  > Is there an already existing function for this, or
>>  > do I use a custom replace loop in R?
>>  >
>>  > Thank you, Alexis
>>  >
>>  >       
>>  > ---------------------------------
>>  >
>>  >	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>>  >
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>>  >
>>
>>
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-- 
William Revelle		http://personality-project.org/revelle.html
Professor			http://personality-project.org/personality.html
Department of Psychology             http://www.wcas.northwestern.edu/psych/
Northwestern University	http://www.northwestern.edu/
Use R for statistics:                          http://personality-project.org/r