ISSS608 2016-17 T1 Assign2 Nguyen Tien Duong Conclusion
ISSS608 2016-17 Assignment 2 - Nguyen Tien Duong
Take away notes
Interpreting survey response results
Since the survey asked to evaluate using scale: 1 to 5 to describe strongly disagreed to strongly agreed opinion, it is easy for researcher to think of "averaging method". However, that approach to "prepare" data does not only represent no meaning but also create confuse.
Firstly, 1-5 scale is actually only indices ID of the the response, according to:
1: Strongly Disagreed 2: Disagreed 3: Neutral 4: Agreed 5: Strongly Agreed
If any "averaging" operation is considered, we must do in the value of it, such as "(2*agreed + 3*strongly_agreed)/(2+3)", which unfortunately return "undefined" result.
Being worse, some attempt to calculate "(2 * [4] + 3* [5]) / (2+3) = 4.6". This result is not either "agreed" or "strongly agreed". This is as well: "undefined".
Secondly, averaging leads to confuse. Some arguments may be raised to "4.6 means 'more agreed' then just agreed". That is wrong since we do not define a continuous range here, and there is not such more agreed in the scale. Furthermore, let's consider an extreme case with only:
1: Agreed 2: Neutral 3: Disagreed
If 50% responses is [1] and 50% is [3] and 0% is [2], using the same method, we could conclude that the entire population homogeneously thinks that it is "Neutral" toward the question. That is absolutely wrong, it is extreme and polarized!
In a short conclusion: NO AVERAGING for this type of survey result.
