Ordering properties for multiple‐choice questionnaire items
Makoto Takeya · Electronics and Communications in Japan (Part III Fundamental Electronic Science) · 1990
Abstract The multiple‐choice questionnaire is used frequently in psychological investigations of human behavior. Previously the author has proposed SS (semantic structure) analysis. The method is based on the order of the questionnaire items, and the structurization of the items is considered using the asymmetrical measure called ordering coefficient, which is a quantitative representation of the order of the items. The multiple‐choice questionnaire can roughly be divided into the following three kinds: (1) Type I data, which are evaluation measure data where the score is high when the evaluation is high; (2) Type II data, which are evaluation measure data where the score is the highest at the central value of the evaluation and lower at both sides; (3) Type III data, which are a nominal measure data where the score does not have a particular meaning. Semantic structure analysis which was reported previously, is concerned with Type I data. With that method as the background, this paper newly proposes the ordering coefficient, which can be applied also to Type II and Type III data. Then the effective category number is proposed as an index representing the statistical property of the answer distribution. It is shown that the sequence reference of the ordered structure based on the ordering coefficient is the second‐order moment around the central value in Type II data, and is the effective category number in Type III data. Finally, the usefulness of the structurization methods is investigated and possible applications are discussed.