The Effect of the Number of Rating Categories of the Likert Scale on the Correlation Coefficients

The study aimed to examine the impact of the number of options in the Likert scale (five-point/tri-point) on items related to academic achievement motivation and social anxiety. In addition, it sought to determine if there were significant differences between Pearson correlation coefficients for both scales.the study was conducted on a sample composed of 70 individuals from high school students. The study utilized Pearson's correlation coefficient to uncover the relationship between academic achievement motivation and social anxiety, and then Fisher's equation was applied to detect differences between correlation coefficients.the results did not show any significant differences between the correlation coefficients in the five-point and tri-point gradients for both the academic achievement motivation and social anxiety scales according to the study participants.moreover, the results indicated that the number of choices in the Likert scale did not have a significant impact on the correlation coefficients results in the academic achievement motivation and social anxiety scales, meaning that the usage of either the tri-point or five-point scale does not lead to considerable changes in the results.