Research Design Effects on the Reliability of Rating Scales in Marketing: An Update on Churchill and Peter

Churchill and Peter ( 1984) conducted a landmark study in which they used meta-analysis to determine whether particular research design variables (type of sample, type of subjects, use of reverse scoring, etc.) affected the overall reliability of rating scales in marketing. In other words, they studied the question, "What research design variables are likely to make one measurement scale more reliable than another?" If a researcher knows, for example, that a scale composed of semantic differential items with both numerical and verbal labels tends to have a higher reliability score, on average, than a scale using Likert-type items with labels on the polar points only, then that researcher can build in those aspects when designing a new measure.