Sama Radial Indicator (SRI) for Measuring Qualitative Variables

Abstract

Measuring qualitative variables, analyzing them and interpreting them are more challenging than their quantitative counterparts, especially when they are not directly observable. Such variables are captured through Latent Variables (LVs) or hidden variables. These hidden variables are measured by items (questions) and the item responses are obtained by dichotomous or polytomous item scales. The existing item scales have a limited number of response options. For example, the dichotomous scale has only two possible options, and the Likert scales have three, five or seven options. Therefore LV's are categorical types, it is hard to convert them into a continuous scale. Hence categorical data should be analyzed by non-parametric methods. However, the power of parametric tests is higher than the non-parametric counterparts, hence researchers tend to misuse statistical techniques in the analysis of LVs. This study aimed to develop a measurement scale for qualitative variables and mitigate the limitations in the data analysis. The newly developed measurement scale, named "Sama Radial Indicator (SRI)", converts the psychometric responses of the respondents into a continuous random variable, hence either the probability distribution or the sampling distribution of the LVs would meet the normality criteria. Therefore parametric statistical techniques are suitable for the data analysis. The SRI technique would solve a decadesold problem in various fields of research including, Psychology, Management, Business & Marketing, Medical & Healthcare, Education and more. It is recommended to test the efficiency of the SRI with real-life applications.

Keywords: Qualitative variable, Latent variable, Item scale