Products

SurveyMonkey is built to handle every use case and need. Explore our product to learn how SurveyMonkey can work for you.

Get data-driven insights from a global leader in online surveys.

Explore core features and advanced tools in one powerful platform.

Build and customize online forms to collect info and payments.

Integrate with 100+ apps and plug-ins to get more done.

Purpose-built solutions for all of your market research needs.

Create better surveys and spot insights quickly with built-in AI.

Templates

Measure customer satisfaction and loyalty for your business.

Learn what makes customers happy and turn them into advocates.

Get actionable insights to improve the user experience.

Collect contact information from prospects, invitees, and more.

Easily collect and track RSVPs for your next event.

Find out what attendees want so that you can improve your next event.

Uncover insights to boost engagement and drive better results.

Get feedback from your attendees so you can run better meetings.

Use peer feedback to help improve employee performance.

Create better courses and improve teaching methods.

Learn how students rate the course material and its presentation.

Find out what your customers think about your new product ideas.

Resources

Best practices for using surveys and survey data

Our blog about surveys, tips for business, and more.

Tutorials and how to guides for using SurveyMonkey.

How top brands drive growth with SurveyMonkey.

Contact SalesLog in
Contact SalesLog in
surveymonkey-seo-hero


It’s always difficult to quantify something as nuanced as attitude in your survey, but, to compare opinions and predict outcomes, it needs to be done. Luckily, those looking for a formal method can always turn to the tried-and-true Thurstone scale.

The Thurstone scale measures a respondent’s attitude by using a series of “agree-disagree” statements of various weights. These statements help determine not only how a respondent feels, but how strongly they feel that way. By measuring attitude with the Thurstone scale, you can gauge the sentiment or opinion of respondents with greater accuracy.

The Thurstone scale was the first formal method of measuring attitude both in psychology and sociology.

Its origins go back to the early 20th century, where psychologist Louis Leon Thurstone began measuring religious attitudes by asking respondents to agree or disagree with a series of related statements. He understood that attitude was cumulative and that he could, therefore, calculate it as the sum total of each statement the respondent agreed with.

A Thurstone scale survey is a series of related, dichotomous statements. There are many examples of dichotomous statements in the Question Bank; here’s a series of questions to help you understand the concept more concretely:

I am inspired to meet my goals at work.

  • Agree
  • Disagree

I feel completely involved in my work.

  • Agree
  • Disagree

I am often so involved in my work that the day goes by quickly.

  • Agree
  • Disagree

Use the Thurstone scale to measure and compare your respondents’ attitudes on a particular issue. You can apply the Thurstone scale to a wide range of surveys, including:

  • Those that measure opinions. The Thurstone scale produces quantifiable measures of the strength of your respondents’ opinions.
  • Those that gauge sentiment, including customer satisfaction and employee engagement. For customers, the scale can help you predict things like repeat purchases; for employees, it can be future turnover.

Note: Generally, we advise against using agree/disagree questions like those used in the Thurstone scale.

Want to measure, understand, and act on data from your employees or customers? Learn how our custom-built business solutions can help.

To create a Thurstone scale, just follow these 4 simple steps:

  1. Identify a research question related to attitude. Narrow the focus to a single, unidirectional issue.
  2. Generate a series of agree-disagree statements about the subject that ask support the issue to varying degrees. The more statements you come up with, the more useful your data will be. When putting the questions into your SurveyMonkey survey, use the multiple choice single answer question type and check off “Score this question (enable quiz mode)”.
  3. Assign each statement a score of 1 to 11 based on how strong you believe the statement is. A higher score indicates a more supportive position, while a lower score indicates a more neutral position. You can score the questions yourself, but the risk of bias is lower if you get consensus from a study group.
  4. If you’re working in a study group, have each member score how strong they believe the statements are. Find the median score given to each question and then order your questions in ascending order, with the questions with the lowest medians at the top.

Simply assign each “agree” answer a score of 1 to 11—depending on the score above—and each “no” or “disagree” answer a score of 0. The final score of each graded quiz represents the respondent’s strength of opinion, where a higher score indicates a more supportive opinion.

Because the Thurstone scale represents attitude with a number, you can easily evaluate and compare attitudes across individuals or groups (by their average scores) in SurveyMonkey Analyze.

There are statistical limitations to the Thurstone scale. Because the relative weight of each statement is based on the assumptions of an individual or group of individuals, the mathematical differences between statements aren’t always accurate. Nevertheless, the Thurstone scale is an excellent way to evaluate and compare attitudes with a measure of objectivity.

Woman with red hair creating a survey on laptop

Discover our toolkits, designed to help you leverage feedback in your role or industry.

A man and woman looking at an article on their laptop, and writing information on sticky notes

New multi-survey analysis from SurveyMonkey allows users to combine and analyze survey results into one single view.

Smiling man with glasses using a laptop

Reactions to the presidential debate were quick and decisive. New research on what people think and who will be the most influenced

Woman reviewing information on her laptop

Learn how to use questionnaires to collect data to be used in market research for your business. We share examples, templates, and use cases.