Abstract
The handling of ordinal variables presents many difficulties in both the measurements phase and the statistical data analysis. Many efforts have been made to overcome them. An alternative approach to traditional methods used to process ordinal data has been developed over the last two decades. It is based on a fuzzy inference system and is presented, here, applied to the student evaluations of teaching data collected via Internet in Modena, during the academic year 2009/10, by a questionnaire containing items with a four-point Likert scale. The scores emerging from the proposed fuzzy inference system proved to be approximately comparable to scores obtained through the practical, but questionable, procedure based on the average of the item value labels. The fuzzification using a number of membership functions smaller than the number of modalities of input variables yielded outputs that were closer to the average of the item value labels. The Center-of-Area defuzzification method showed good performances and lower dispersion around the mean of the value labels.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Coombs, C.H.: Theory and methods of social measurement. In: Festinger, L., Katz, D. (eds.) Research Methods in the Behavioral Sciences, pp. 471–535. New York, Dryden (1953)
Linneman, T.J.: Social Statistics: The Basics and Beyond. Routledge, New York (2011)
Agresti, A.: Categorical Data Analysis. Wiley, New York (2002)
Amemiya, T.: Qualitative response models: a survey. J. Econ. Lit. XIX, 1483–1538 (1981)
Greene, W.H.: Econometric analysis. Pearson Education India, New Delhi (2003)
Zadeh, L.A.: Fuzzy sets. Inf. Control 8, 338–353 (1965)
Stevens, S.S.: On the theory of scales of measurement. Science 103, 677–680 (1946)
Thurstone, L.L.: A law of comparative judgment. Psychol. Rev. 34, 273–286 (1927a)
Thurstone, L.L.: The method of paired comparison for social values. J. Abnorm. Soc. Psychol. 21, 384–397 (1927b)
Thurstone, L.L.: Attitudes can be measured. Am. J. Sociol. 33, 529–554 (1928)
White, M.: Psychological technique and social problems. Southwest. Polit. Soc. Sci. Q. 2, 58–73 (1926)
Likert, R.: A technique for the measurement of attitudes. Arch. Psychol. Monogr. 140, 1–50 (1932)
Schuman, H., Presser, S.: Questions and Answers in Attitude Surveys: Experiments on Question Form, Wording, and Context. Sage, Thousand Oaks (1996)
Osgood, C.E.: The nature and measurement of meaning. Psychol. Bull. 49, 197–237 (1952)
Osgood, C.E., Suci, G.J., Tannenbaum, P.H.: The Measurement of Meaning. University of Illinois Press, Urbana (1957)
Yu, J.H., Albaum, G., Swenson, M.: Is a central tendency error inherent in the use of semantic differential scales in different cultures? Int. J. Mark. Res. 45, 213–228 (2003)
Crespi, I.: Use of a scaling technique in surveys. J. Mark. 25, 69–72 (1961)
Cantril, H., Free, L.A.: Hopes and fears for self and country: the self-anchoring striving scale in cross-cultural research. Am. Behav. Sci. 6, 4–30 (1962)
Kilpatrick, F.P., Cantril, H.: Self-anchoring scaling: a measure of individuals’ unique reality worlds. J. Individ. Psychol. 16, 158–173 (1960)
Hofmans, J., Theuns, P., Van Acker, F.: Combining quality and quantity. a psychometric evaluation of the self-anchoring scale. Qual. Quant. 43, 703–716 (2009)
ANES: American National Election Studies 1964: Pre-post election study. Survey Research Center (S473). http://www.electionstudies.org/studypages/1964prepost/int1964.txt (1964). Accessed 12 Feb 2015
Weisberg, H.F., Rusk, J.G.: Dimensions of candidate evaluation. Am Polit. Sci. Rev. 64, 1167–1185 (1970)
Crespi, L.P.: Public opinion toward conscientious objectors: Ii. measurement of national approval-disapproval. J. Psychol. 19, 209–250 (1945a)
Crespi, L.P.: Public opinion toward conscientious objectors: Iii. intensity of social rejection in stereotype and attitude. J. Psychol. 19, 251–276 (1945b)
Bernberg, R.E.: Socio-psychological factors in industrial morale: I. the prediction of specific indicators. J. Soc. Psychol. 36, 73–82 (1952)
Juster, T.F.: Prediction and consumer buying intentions. Am. Econ. Rev. 50, 604–617 (1960)
Juster, T.F.: Consumer buying intentions and purchase probability: an experiment in survey design. J. Am. Stat. Assoc. 61, 658–696 (1966)
Babbie, E.R.: Introduction to Social Research. Cengage Learning, Wadsworth (2010)
Marsh, H.W.: Students’ evaluations of university teaching: research findings, methodological issues, and directions for future research. Int. J. Educ. Res. 11, 253–388 (1987)
CNVSU: Proposta di un insieme minimo di domande per la valutazione della didattica da parte degli studenti frequentanti. CNVSU, Doc 09/02, Rome, Retrieved from http://www.cnvsu.it (2002). Accessed 28 July 2011
Chiandotto, B., Gola, M.M.: Questionario di base da utilizzare per l’attuazione di un programma per la valutazione della didattica da parte degli studenti. Rapporto finale del gruppo di ricerca (RdR 01/00), CNVSU, Rome, Retrieved from http://www.cnvsu.it (2000). Accessed 28 July 2011
Lalla, M., Facchinetti, G.: Measurement and fuzzy scales. In: Atti della XLII Riunione Scientifica: Sessioni Plenarie e Specializzate, pp. 351–362. SIS—University of Bari, Bari, 9–11 June 2004
Lalla, M., Facchinetti, G., Mastroleo, G.: Ordinal scales and fuzzy set systems to measure agreement: an application to the evaluation of teaching activity. Qual. Quant. 38, 577–601 (2004b)
Lalla, M., Ferrari, D.: Web-based versus paper-based data collection for the evaluation of teaching activity: empirical evidence from a case study. Assess. Eval. High. Educ. 36, 347–365 (2011)
Dubois, D., Prade, H.: Fundamentals of Fuzzy Sets. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston (2000)
Kasabov, N.K.: Foundations of Neural Networks, Fuzzy Systems, and Knowledge Engineering. MIT Press, Cambridge (1996)
Smithson, M.: Fuzzy Set Analysis for Behavioral and Social Sciences. Springer, Heidelberg (1987)
Smithson, M.: Fuzzy set theory and the social sciences: the scope for applications. Fuzzy Sets Syst. 26, 1–21 (1988)
DasGupta, A.: Fundamentals of Probability: a First Course. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)
Grzegorzewski, P., Mrówka, E.: Trapezoidal approximations of fuzzy numbers. Fuzzy Sets Syst. 153, 115–135 (2005)
Grzegorzewski, P., Mrówka, E.: Trapezoidal approximations of fuzzy numbers—revisited. Fuzzy Sets Syst. 158, 757–768 (2007)
Grzegorzewski, P.: Trapezoidal approximations of fuzzy numbers preserving the expected interval—algorithms and properties. Fuzzy Sets Syst. 159, 1354–1364 (2008)
Yeh, C.T.: Weighted trapezoidal and triangular approximations of fuzzy numbers. Fuzzy Sets Syst. 160, 3059–3079 (2009)
INFORM-GmbH: Manual, FuzzyTech Users. Inform Software Corporation (2007)
Von Altrock, C.: Fuzzy Logic and NeuroFuzzy Applications in Business and Finance. Prentice Hall PTR, Upper Saddle River (1997)
Zimmermann, H.J.: Fuzzy Set Theory Appl. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston (1996)
Van Leekwijck, W., Kerre, E.E.: Defuzzification: criteria and classification. Fuzzy Sets Syst. 108, 159–178 (1999)
Kampen, J., Swyngedouw, M.: The ordinal controversy revisited. Qual. Quant. 34, 87–102 (2000)
Lord, F.M.: On the statistical treatment of football members. Am. Psychol. 8, 750–751 (1953)
Velleman, P.F., Wilkinson, L.: Ordinal, interval, and ratio typologies are misleading. Am. Stat. 47, 65–72 (1993)
Stevens, S.S.: Mathematics, measurement, and psychophysics. In: Stevens, S.S. (ed.) Handbook of Experimental Psychology, pp. 1–49. Wiley, New York (1951)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this paper
Cite this paper
Lalla, M., Pirotti, T. (2016). The Ordinal Controversy and the Fuzzy Inference System Through an Application and Simulation to Teaching Activity Evaluation. In: Merelo, J.J., Rosa, A., Cadenas, J.M., Dourado, A., Madani, K., Filipe, J. (eds) Computational Intelligence. IJCCI 2014. Studies in Computational Intelligence, vol 620. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26393-9_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26393-9_12
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-26391-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-26393-9
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)