Pairwise comparisons as a scale development tool for composite measures

Composite scales are widely used for measuring aggregate social science concepts. These often consist of linear indices obtained as the weighted sum of a set of relevant indicators. However, selecting coefficients (or weights) that reflect the substantive importance of each indicator towards the con...

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Veröffentlicht in:Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A, Statistics in society Jg. 185; H. 2; S. 519 - 542
Hauptverfasser: Floridi, Ginevra, Lauderdale, Benjamin E.
Format: Journal Article
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: Oxford Oxford University Press 01.04.2022
Schlagworte:
Aging
Asian cultural groups
Coefficients
composite index
Concepts
content validity
Cultural groups
Experts
Indexes
Indicators
linear index
Measures
Reliability
Reliability analysis
robustness
Social sciences
Weighting
weighting and aggregation
weighting scheme
ISSN:0964-1998, 1467-985X
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Zusammenfassung:Composite scales are widely used for measuring aggregate social science concepts. These often consist of linear indices obtained as the weighted sum of a set of relevant indicators. However, selecting coefficients (or weights) that reflect the substantive importance of each indicator towards the concept of interest is a difficult task. We propose a method for the generation of linear indices for aggregate concepts based on pairwise comparisons. Specifically, we ask a group of subject‐matter experts to perform a series of pairwise comparisons, with respect to the concept of interest, between profiles displaying different combinations of indicators. This allows us to estimate coefficients for each indicator that provide a linear approximation to how experts make the pairwise evaluations. As we show, the method makes it straightforward to assess intercoder reliability, while being a more accessible task than directly asking experts for coefficients. We demonstrate our method with an application to the concept of ‘productive ageing’, including a cross‐cultural comparison of weighting schemes derived from a group of Italian and a group of South Korean experts on this concept.
Bibliographie:Funding information
Economic and Social Research Council, 1+3 PhD Scholarship
ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
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content type line 14
ISSN:0964-1998
1467-985X
DOI:10.1111/rssa.12790