I have a 20 question 5 point Likert scale questionairre built to tap four constructs, each via 5-items. Was hoping to use PCA to reduce data and then use parametric tests for each construct.
In retrospect prob naive.
Data are markedly non-normal - very heavily skewed to Agree side for most items. Cronbach Alpha Reliability for each "construct" is about 0.45-0.5 No correlation coefficients over 0.3 in correlation matrix Reflect & Log Transformation of variables doesn't help much. So, I think I need to abandon parametrics.
Is it reasonable to do the following: Note the above and then:
present a table cof all individual items grouped according to "construct" each with the median likert score value and range.
Or,
For each 5 item "scale" add the scores for each of the points over the 5 items (so add all the agrees, all the strongly agrees etc) Present one frequency histogram of the overall "scale" and just refer to the median and range for that scale?
If not, can anyone suggest the best way to refer to those data in an appropriately qualified descriptive non-parametric way? These are not central to findings: supplementary to strong qualitative data. many thanks in anticipation.