Measuring the Degree of Importance: A Comparison of Two Types of Rating Scales
Amoo, T. and Friedman, H. H. (2000). “Measuring the Degree of Importance: A Comparison of Two Types of Rating Scales.” Proceedings of The Midwest Decision Sciences Institute Conference, Chicago, Illinois, March 31-April 2, 2000, 178-180.
11 Pages Posted: 3 Nov 2013
Date Written: April 1, 2000
Abstract
A study was conducted to determine whether different importance rating scales would produce different results. Two different degree-of-importance scales were used to measure the importance of 12 factors in deciding where to work and 14 factors in deciding where to go to college. One scale, a more traditional scale, measured importance from “extremely important” to “not important.” The other scale, a less traditional scale, asked subjects to indicate the degree of importance only for those factors that subjects felt were at all important. The results showed that with a less traditional scale subjects were more likely to indicate that a factor was not important.
Keywords: rating scales, importance scale, questionnaire design
JEL Classification: C00, C10, C40, I20
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