Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
398816 International Journal of Approximate Reasoning 2007 15 Pages PDF
Abstract

A new measure of dispersion is introduced as a representation of consensus (agreement) and dissention (disagreement). Building on the generally accepted Shannon entropy, this measure utilizes a probability distribution and the distance between categories to produce a value spanning the unit interval. The measure is applied to the Likert scale (or any ordinal scale) to determine degrees of consensus or agreement. Using this measure, data on ordinal scales can be given a value of dispersion that is both logically and theoretically sound.

Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering Computer Science Artificial Intelligence