Likert Question Type

Introducing the new Likert scale question type! This question type may sound familiar and there is a very good reason for that. The Likert scale is a method of scaling responses that is named after its inventor, phycologist Rensis Likert. The Likert scale is a method of scaling responses specifically in relation to research studies that employ questionnaires for data collection. You are more than likely familiar with this style of question whether you knew the official name or not so here is an example of a Likert scale question:

Previously if you wanted to build a question that resembled the example above you were more than capable of doing that using a horizontal picklist question type and providing the answer options on your own. Since this is a widely used method of question scaling the ExAM product team decided we would save you some time and provide you with this style of question as its own feature.

Now that you are familiar with the question type and are eagerly awaiting your first chance to implement it we should go through the steps required to configure your Org so that it is available for use.

 

Configuring your Org for the Likert question type

The first thing you are going to want to do is navigate to the Question Template object through the Object Manager under Setup.

Once you are on the Question Template object you will click on Fields & Relationships where you will scroll down until you see Question Type and click on it.

Here you will scroll down until you see the Values section and click the New button. You will be prompted to enter in a new picklist option to which you will provide the value “Likert” and click Save. Doing this will make the Likert question type available to be selected in the question type picklist.

After you have added the Likert option to the picklist there is one more step to expose the Likert Type field in the ExAM Command Console. You will see why that is important when we go to create our first Likert question.

To do this you will navigate to the Question Template object once again, only this time you will have to view this object in Salesforce Classic (if you weren’t already doing that).

You will then scroll down until you see lightningComp_QuestionOptions_FieldSet under the Field Sets section. Once you have found it you will click Edit. On the page that it brings you to you will need to drag and drop the Likert field onto the filed set and then click Save.

Now that you have added the picklist value and made the Likert field available in the field set you will be able to properly use the Likert question type.

Creating a question template using the Likert question

Now to actually create an assessment that uses the Likert type question to demo the available options. To do this you will navigate to the ExAM Command Console. From here you will click +New ExAM and name it appropriately a well as create a section.

 

You will now click the dropdown picklist to select the Likert Question Type. After you have selected the question type you will provide the question template with Question Text.

Now before you click Add Question you must provide the question template with one more piece of information so that it knows what answer options to generate. To do this you will click on Question Options where you will see another field called Likert. On that field, you will click the dropdown picklist and select the type of scaling you want the answer options to relate to. Once you have done this can click Add Question.

The currently available Likert types are Agreement, Frequency, Importance, and Likelihood.