 Rating scale:

 A rating scale is a set of categories designed to elicit

information about a quantitative or a qualitative
attribute. In the social sciences, common examples
are the Likert scale and 1-10 rating scales in which a
person selects the number which is considered to
reflect the perceived quality of a product
A rating scale is an instrument that requires the rater to
assign the rated object that have numerals assigned
to them.
 Types of Rating Scales
- NUMERICAL RATING SCALE: simplest type of RS , the rather
simply mark a number that indicates the extent to which a
characteristic or trait is present.
Indications: Adults and children (> 9 years old) in all
patient care settings who are able to use
numbers to rate the intensity of their pain.
Instructions:
1. The patient is asked any one of the following questions:
- What number would you give your pain right now?
- What number on a 0 to 10 scale would you give your pain
- when it is the worst that it get sand when it is the best that it
gets?
- At what number is the pain at an acceptable level for you?

2. When the explanation suggested in #1 above is not sufficient

for the patient, it is sometimes helpful to further explain or
conceptualize the Numeric Rating Scale in the following
manner:
0 = No Pain
1-3 = Mild Pain (nagging, annoying, interfering little with ADLs)
4–6 = Moderate Pain (interferes significantly with ADLs)
7-10 = Severe Pain (disabling; unable to perform ADLs)

3. The interdisciplinary team in collaboration with the

patient/family
- Graphic Rating Scale:
Graphic Rating is the term used to define the oldest and most
widely used performance appraisal method.
The evaluators are given a graph and asked to rate the
employees/STUDENT/ person on each of the characteristics.
The number of characteristics can vary from one to one
hundred.
The rating can be a matrix of boxes for the evaluator to check
off or a bar graph where the evaluator checked off a location
relative to the evaluators rating.
- Descriptive graphic rating scale:
Descriptive Rating Scales are those in which each rating
level is defined, often in detail and is not necessarily assigned a
point value. Having good descriptions for rating levels alleviates
some of the problems identified for graphic scales and does not
force a teacher to quantify performance, if that is not
appropriate.  
Factor improving validity of rating:
-

Take care in construction of scale

Encouragement
Average judge
- Rate only one characteristic at a time.
- Desirable trait and undesirable trait and vice
versa.
- Avoid making the extremes so atypical of
behavior
CHARACTERISTIC OF RS:
- Rating scales can measure social phenomena.
Nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio levels of measurement
characterize the most common types of questions found on
ratings scales.
- Nominal: A rating scale can contain nominal, or categorical,
levels of measurement. As University of California-Davis
(UCD) psychology professors point out nominal data refers to
a quality of something as opposed to quantity. For instance,
a question that asks you to choose your gender (e.g., 1-
male, 2-female) is considered a nominal level of
measurement. Other nominal data include hair color,
- Ordinal: rating socioeconomic status as low,
medium or high is an ordinal measure. Direction is
also indicated in an ordinal measure, notes UCD
psychologists, as in the case of ranking something in
first, second or third place.
- Interval: the distance between the choices is
equally spaced. UCLA (University of California-
Los Angeles ) uses annual income as a way to
illustrate this.
- Ratio: Ratio level measurements share the same
characteristics as nominal, ordinal and interval, but
they also, claim UCD researchers, contain an
absolute zero. An absolute zero refers to the point
where the quality being measured ceases to exist.
UCD cites years of experience, number of children
and grade point average as examples of ratio levels
of measurement.
Likert Scales:
When you fill out a survey, it is likely that at least some of the
questions you answer are Likert-type scale questions. such
as -"strongly agree,"
- "agree,"
-"neutral,"
-"disagree" and "strongly disagree.“
A drawback of Likert scales is that you cannot know for sure
if it is an ordinal or interval level of measurement. In
practice, Likert scales are typically treated as interval
measures.

Researchers often assume equally spaced distances between

response choices.
Advantages of RS in education:
- Evaluate performance.
- Give more insight on how well/ often the child performed
each task.
- Structured and standardized.
- Easy compared.
- Encourages equality in treatment.
- Easy to use and understand
- Forces teacher to make a decision
- Reduce rater bias and subjectivity
Sources of error in rating scale:
- Ambiguity
- The personality of raters( halo effect, personal bias, logical
errors)
- Attitude of rater
- Opportunity of adequate observation
Improving the rating scale:
-identify educational significant traits.
-clearly define the trait to be rated and the scale point to
be used.
-Avoid technical jargon.
-Express the trait to be rated as question rather than as
immediate after question
-If the line showing the continuum is used, it should
follow immediately after the question
-Determine how discriminating you want the rating and
divide the continuum accordingly. three to seven point
interval
A checklist is a type of informational job aid used
to reduce failure by compensating for potential
limits of human memory and attention.

It helps to ensure consistency and completeness in

carrying out a task. A basic example is the "to
do list." A more advanced checklist would be a
schedule, which lays out tasks to be done
according to time of day or other factors.
USES:
- use in medical practice to ensure that
clinical practice guidelines are followed. An example is the
Surgical Safety Checklist developed for the
World Health Organization by Dr. Atul Gawande.
- pre-flight checklists and pre-landing checklists aid in
aviation safety to ensure that a long list of items are not
forgotten
- used in quality assurance of software engineering, to check
process compliance, code standardization and error prevention,
and others.
- often used in industry in operations procedures.
- can aid in mitigating claims of negligence in public liability
claims by providing evidence of a risk management system
being in place.
 CONSTRUCTIO OF CHECKLIST:
- Express each items clearly and in simple language
- Avoid lifting statement verbatim from the text
- Avoid negative statement whenever possible
- Make sure that each items is clearly yes or no, true or
false,.
- Review the items independently.
Advantages:
- Adaptable to most subject
- Useful in evaluating of procedure processes
- Observed the trait……demand
- Interindividual comparisons
- Record observation
Checklist for evaluation of student’s performance
during surgical dressing
behaviors Place for(√) tick mark remarks
1. Explain procedure

2. Collects necessary equipment

3. Arranges equipment for convenient use

4. Prepare patient

5. Washes hand

6. Maintain aseptic technique

7. Removes dressing

8. Observes condition of wound

9. Cleans wound

10. Applies dressing

11. Removes equipment

12. Makes patient comfortable

13. Completes charting

Bibliography:
1. Basavanthappa bt. Nursing education, first
edition. 2003. jaypee publisher. New delhi,
page no 503- 545.
2. Characteristics of Rating Scales | eHow.com
http://www.ehow.com/list_6139988_characte
ristics-rating-scales.html#ixzz0xEWdrPhY

3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checklist
4. http://www.statistics.com/resources/glossary/
r/ratioscale.php