What's the best way to interpret Likert Scales with equal negative and positive Likert Items?

Question

What's the best way to interpret Likert Scales with equal negative and positive Likert Items that represent each construct presented?

Construct: Accuracy of Data
Scale: Agree-Disagree (1 to 5)

• The data is accurate? (positive) Responses: 5(Dan),5(James),4(Sarah)
• The data is not accurate? (negative) Responses: 1(Dan),1(James),2(Sarah)

I know that bar graphs can be used to illustrate how respondents felt about each Likert Item individually (e.g. 45% strongly agreed that the data is accurate), but assuming that the split half reliability method shows that the data I have collected can be trusted from face value, how could I best group the information by like-minded constructs (e.g. Data being the construct in the two questions above)?

Answer 1

I would suggest that you might be able to present it on a single scale as "perceived data accuracy", and then just reverse the values of the negative ones and combine them with the positive ones.

Presumably (depending on how your phrased the questions), a 5 for "The data is accurate" would map directly to a 1 for "The data is inaccurate," and likewise for the other four values on each: an inverse correlation. If the questions were phrased in a similar manner for both positive and negative, you might be able to simply group all the negative 1s with the positive 5s, negative 2s with positive 4s, and all 3s, etc. and present them on a single scale.