Rating ≠ Ranking

We researchers love ratings and rankings–learning how important ideas, attributes or budget items are is often the core of what we do.

There are many ways to understand importance–two that are used quite often are ratings and rankings.

BIG WORD OF CAUTION…they are not the same. In fact the only things that are the same are the first two letters.

You rate something, usually by importance, on a 3-point, 5-point, 7-point or even a 9-point scale, with one usually the ‘least important’ and whatever your top point as the ‘most important’. Ratings are not discrete–many items can be rated the same. Useful for a large series of items where ranking would be too difficult.

You rank a series of ideas in order of importance as well. But, rankings are discrete with each number in the ‘scale’ used only once.

Easy way to think of this: on a 5 point scale, many items can be rated a 5, but only one can be ranked a 5.

I just finished a survey where I gave the client those two options–a rating or a ranking. Both were valid choices, both would give the client the information they needed to make a smart decision. This particular client was hosting the survey themselves and elected to use the ranking question…

…but changed the wording to ‘rating’. Grrrr.