Last Update Date:
What is a 1 to 5 rating scale?
- A 1 to 5 rating scale is a simple and effective way to rate the severity or magnitude of something, going from 1, the lowest rating, to 5, the highest rating, which allows respondents to answer quickly and can be applied to a variety of things.
Has your doctor ever asked you to rate your pain from 1 to 5, with 5 being the most severe? If so, you’re already familiar with rating scales. In fact, you probably encounter rating scales routinely without even realizing it.
What is a 1 to 5 rating scale?
Rating scales measure responses that aren’t easily quantified, such as feelings, perceptions, interests, and preferences. A 1 to 5 rating scale is a simple and effective way to rate the severity or magnitude of something.
It typically goes from 1, the lowest rating, to 5, the highest rating. The 1 to 5 scale allows respondents to answer quickly and can be applied to a variety of things, such as pain, temperature, and brightness.
Pro Tip
Create custom surveys — including ones with rating scales — using Jotform’s free online form builder.
Why use a 1 to 5 rating scale?
Many people prefer the 1 to 5 rating scale since it’s simple and easily understood. Rating something on a 1 to 5 scale provides a good range, from mild to severe, so that people can get an idea of how bad a problem is.
It’s also easier to compare things that have been rated on the same scale. For example, if you’re collecting feedback on a product and see a bunch of durability ratings below 2, you know you have a problem with product construction.
How to use a 1 to 5 rating scale
A 1 to 5 rating scale is a great way to collect feedback on a person’s thoughts and feelings. It can be used to rate anything, from a software application to a food item sold at a restaurant.
The first step is to create a list of questions that allow someone to rank by severity. For example, you could ask participants how easy it was to navigate your app’s main screen, and then give the following answer options:
- 1 means you didn’t enjoy it at all and would not recommend it to others.
- 2 means you didn’t enjoy it but might recommend it to others.
- 3 means you enjoyed it, but it wasn’t your favorite.
- 4 means you really enjoyed it and would recommend it to others.
- 5 means you loved it and would definitely recommend it to others.
After collecting responses from your survey, you’ll need to organize the data visually. For example, Jotform’s surveys load data into an underlying database. This database helps you quickly see all participants’ answers in one place and spot trends in user responses — helping you understand what’s working and what’s not.
Pro Tip
Create custom surveys — including ones with rating scales — using Jotform’s free online form builder.
Rating scales are common in our daily lives. Healthcare organizations use them to monitor depression, anxiety, stress, and overall well-being. Other organizations use rating scale surveys to provide better value to clients and customers. You can gain equally valuable insights by using them in your business.
Rating scale surveys help you understand your audience
Businesses use survey rating scales to gather information about satisfaction levels, frequency of use, loyalty, and other customer data. Customer response data, in turn, helps you determine which products and services are most effective. This data is essential for making informed business decisions across all departments.
Consider just one application: marketing. Successful retail stores spend between 3 and 5 percent of their sales totals on marketing. That means a business with only a few employees could spend upwards of $25,000 on marketing.
You risk wasting your small business’s funds if your marketing efforts don’t target the right audience. In contrast, using customer data to make marketing decisions gives you a huge leg up. Rating scales are a simple but effective way to learn about your customers and improve how you communicate with them. Let’s consider a few different types and how they’re used.
Different types of survey rating scales for different tasks
Rating scales range from super simple to highly complex. Each rating scale can be used to gather specific data. Here’s a list of five common rating scales and how they can be used in surveys:
- Likert scale. Participants rate their level of agreement with items that describe a topic, like customer satisfaction, usability, or loyalty. This type of survey might make a statement like “It’s important for me to use my cell phone throughout the day” and ask the participant to choose from a range of options beginning with “strongly disagree,” and ending with “strongly agree.”
- Linear numeric scale. In a linear numeric scale, participants provide a numeric response to a question or statement. This response may relate to satisfaction, ease of use, brand favorability, feature importance, or likelihood of a recommendation. You may have seen this example recently: “How likely are you to recommend our app to your friends and family?”
- Frequency scales. These scales help you understand how often or frequently people perform actions. A frequency scale question like “How often do you use your car to commute to work?” helps researchers better understand driving habits.
- Paired comparison scale. A paired comparison scale helps to discern preferences between two things, such as a website, brand, or design. For example, if you’re trying to learn about consumer brand preferences, you might show your survey group the branding for two companies and ask, “Of the two brands given, which do you prefer?”
- Pictorial/graphic scales. Instead of picking a number, participants use visuals to indicate their opinion of a particular product. This option can be helpful when participants are already used to a measurement method such as stars and thumbs-up for movie ratings.
Before deciding which method to use for your next survey, consider the different types of surveys people are already accustomed to in your industry. Your subject matter is also a significant factor.
Using a linear numeric scale in healthcare surveys may be best because people are accustomed to rating their discomfort on that scale. On the other hand, a paired comparison scale may be best for marketing since you can gain good customer insights by understanding how you stack up against the competition.
Use survey rating scales to get the data you need
Relentless market pressure is making organizations ever more data centric. The businesses that understand their audience best will beat out competition that’s complacent in their assumptions.
Learning from your audience requires skillfully asking the right questions in the right way. Although rating scales are intuitive and simple, their results are powerful indicators of what people really want from your organization.
Jotform makes it easy to survey your audience. Our online platform will help you create surveys, distribute them, and learn from the data. Try creating your first survey for free.
Was this article helpful?
Learn to live & work smarter, not harder!
Get our top articles delivered straight to your inbox each week.
RECOMMENDED ARTICLES
What is the smiley face rating scale?
by Jotform|December 21, 2022
How to ask someone to fill out a survey
by Jotform|May 17, 2022
How to conduct a pricing survey: Questions to ask
by Jotform|January 24, 2023
How to embed a survey in a website
by Jotform|July 26, 2022
5 tips for creating great qualitative surveys
by Jotform|April 17, 2023
SurveyMonkey vs Alchemer (Formerly SurveyGizmo)
by Jotform|October 22, 2020
16 best survey tools worth checking out
by Jotform|June 27, 2019
4 survey design tips to get more accurate results
by Jotform|October 12, 2021
9 examples of ranking survey questions
by Jotform|March 13, 2023
What is a good Net Promoter Score® (NPS®)?
by Jotform|September 06, 2023
The best newsletter survey questions to ask
by John Boitnott|August 07, 2023
Announcing Jotform’s free Student Survey Program
by Annabel Maw|June 21, 2021
Exit survey questions to ask your former employees
by John Boitnott|February 11, 2021
How to set up and send a Constant Contact survey
by John Boitnott|April 27, 2022
What are the best website survey questions?
by Jotform|April 05, 2023
Top diversity and inclusion questions to ask employees
by Jotform|November 30, 2022
How to send Mailchimp surveys easily
by Jotform|August 21, 2020
Types of survey bias and ways to avoid them
by Jotform|September 27, 2023
Survey questions 101: Examples and tips
by Darin Moriki|July 01, 2021
Multiple-choice survey questions: Examples and tips
by Jotform|February 17, 2023
How to embed a survey in an email
by John Boitnott|March 24, 2022
How is public opinion measured with surveys?
by Jotform|October 13, 2021
15 of the best Refiner.io alternatives
by Jotform|October 26, 2022
20 business survey questions to ask your customers
by Jotform|September 12, 2022
How to create a survey in Microsoft Word
by Jotform|August 16, 2019
How to create a survey in Google Forms
by Jotform|July 02, 2019
How to make Google Forms anonymous
by Jotform|November 22, 2021
6 effective ways to find survey participants
by Jotform|June 01, 2023
Basic product survey questions to ask customers
by John Boitnott|October 14, 2020
A Guide to Creating the Perfect Survey Form
by Jotform|June 18, 2012
How to create an employee pulse survey
by Chris Bass|August 31, 2020
How to conduct an online survey
by Jotform|December 14, 2020
How to turn survey results into a great presentation
by Jotform|August 01, 2022
How to create a survey on Facebook
by Jotform|July 10, 2019
Webinar: How to use surveys and email marketing to gain key insights
by Morgan Ziontz|March 23, 2022
8 of the best WordPress survey plug-ins
by Jotform|July 06, 2023
How to collect secure survey data
by Jotform|January 27, 2023
How to use a survey dashboard effectively
by Jotform|September 27, 2021
How to calculate the Net Promoter Score® (NPS®)
by John Boitnott|July 07, 2020
14 best SurveyMonkey alternatives in 2024
by Jotform|August 13, 2019
How to write good survey questions
by Jotform|April 25, 2022
Top 3 SurveySparrow alternatives
by John Boitnott|February 22, 2023
Best training survey questions to evaluate effectiveness
by Jotform|February 17, 2021
Top 6 QuestionPro alternatives
by Jotform|January 10, 2023
How to improve survey accuracy
by Jotform|October 11, 2023
Offline surveys: How to collect data anywhere
by Jotform|October 25, 2021
How to add a popup survey on your website
by Jotform|July 29, 2022
What is a good survey response rate?
by Jotform|March 21, 2023
10 questions to ask in your membership survey
by Jotform|April 21, 2022
The 6 best customer satisfaction survey tools
by Jotform|February 17, 2021
Ethnicity survey questions: Benefits and examples
by Jotform|February 12, 2024
The 3 best Checkbox Survey alternatives
by John Boitnott|December 27, 2022
How to write unbiased survey questions
by Jotform|February 20, 2024
Survey data collection: 5 best practices
by Jotform|July 23, 2019
One question at a time: The best strategy for a survey
by Jotform|October 15, 2020
10 AidaForm alternatives that make data collection a breeze
by Jotform|September 19, 2023
6 EmailMeForm alternatives to build powerful surveys
by Jotform|August 23, 2022
How to ask someone to take a survey via email
by John Boitnott|August 18, 2022
Qualtrics vs SurveyMonkey: Which should you choose?
by Jotform|October 07, 2021
How to add a signature in SurveyMonkey
by Lee Nathan|October 29, 2021
Survey report examples with informative visuals
by Jotform|February 10, 2021
How to automate survey follow-up emails
by Jotform|October 23, 2023
How to get the most out of Peakon surveys
by Jotform|September 15, 2022
The 5 most powerful Bucket.io alternatives
by Jotform|October 06, 2021
Closed-ended questions: Definition and examples
by Jotform|September 13, 2022
How to close a survey on SurveyMonkey
by Jotform|May 25, 2022
Pre-sales surveys: How to focus on your best leads
by Jotform|October 05, 2022
Send Comment:
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Be the first to comment.