It is interesting and important at the same time to understand whether it is best to administer a balanced scale or an unbalanced scale. To begin with, if we focus on the balance scales, it primarily means that there an even number of points on either side of the scale. This means on the positive as well as the negative side.
On the contrary, a negative scale is something that is skewed on either the positive or the negative side. This is again an option to be used when the research scale had to be selected.
The balanced scale is bigger and gives more narrower options to the respondents, to chose between balanced and unbalanced scales, it largely depends upon the the kind of expectation or estimation that you have from the responses. If the researcher is aware that most of the respondents are going to agree to him the breakdown of the negative side of the scake will not be of much use and it is better to use an unbalanced scale. To explain it simply, in the case of the predicted skewed response on either side of the scale from the respondents, an unbalanced scale works well. However, if the researcher has doubt about the responses and cannot be sure if the responses will skew on either side then he should go for a larger scale like a balanced scale so that fair anount of clear options are offered to the respondents.
One point that should be noted in the case of unbalanced scale and should be considered thoroughly before deciding the scale is that, unbalanced scale do not offer a middle point and the result is an ordinal scale aas opposed to an interval scale. This makes it difficult to compute the mean or average response. And for the measures of central tendency,n the dependance comes on median instead of mean.
Considering all these factors, it becomes simpler for a researcher to chose between a balanced and unbalanced scale.
