Do People Prefer to Give Interval-Valued or Point Estimates and Why?

Ellerby, Zack; Wagner, Christian

Abstract

Capturing interval-valued, as opposed to more conventional point-valued data, offers a potentially efficient method of obtaining richer information in individual responses. In turn, interval-valued data provide a strong foundation for subsequent fuzzy set based modelling--e.g., using the Interval Agreement Approach. In 2019, open-source software (DECSYS) was released to enable digital administration of interval-valued surveys using an ellipse response mode. This study follows on from an appraisal of this software and demonstration of practical value of the approach, reported last year, in one of many potential real-world applications (consumer preference research). A key ambition of ellipse-based interval elicitation is to maximise response efficiency--i.e., minimising workload and complexity in obtaining this richer information. User experience is therefore a vital consideration regarding potential for broader adoption. The present paper documents a direct empirical comparison between interval-valued response elicitation (using ellipses) and a conventional point-valued counterpart (using a Visual Analogue Scale), in terms of user experience during completion of a simple quantitative estimation task. We examine differences in perceived ease-of-use, unnecessary complexity and effective communication of desired responses, as well as overall liking--with positive outcomes for the interval-valued response mode in each case. We also report results of multiple regression analyses examining how the first three variables contribute to participants' overall liking of each response mode, as well as exploring differences driven by potentially important demographic factors (i.e., gender, age & native English speaking).

Citation

Ellerby, Z., & Wagner, C. (2021, July). Do People Prefer to Give Interval-Valued or Point Estimates and Why?. Presented at 2021 IEEE International Conference on Fuzzy Systems (FUZZ-IEEE), Luxembourg (now virtual)

• Presentation Conference Type: Edited Proceedings
• Conference Name: 2021 IEEE International Conference on Fuzzy Systems (FUZZ-IEEE)
• Start Date: Jul 11, 2021
• End Date: Jul 14, 2021
• Acceptance Date: May 7, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Aug 5, 2021
• Publication Date: Aug 5, 2021
• Deposit Date: May 24, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 5, 2021
• Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Pages: 637-642
• Series Title: IEEE International Conference on Fuzzy Systems
• Series ISSN: 1098-7584
• Book Title: Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Fuzzy Systems (FUZZ-IEEE 2021)
• ISBN: 9781665444088
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/FUZZ45933.2021.9494507
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/5569265
• Publisher URL: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9494507
• Additional Information: © 2021 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.