Inconsistency in response when questions are repeated with the number of options changing

Abstract

Discarding haphazard and insincere respondents can improve the quality of data resulting in more efficient survey analysis. This may be achieved by repeating a question with varied scale and then checking the consistency of relevant responses. A formal measure of inconsistency of a respondent is formulated in this work on the basis of his/her response to the same question repeated in multiple scales. The measure can be alternatively viewed as a measure of fuzziness attributed to respondent or attribute depending on its formulation. The probability distribution of this measure is obtained if the respondent marks completely at random. Undesirable respondents may be screened using the above mentioned probability distribution in the framework of statistical testing of hypothesis. The application extends to identifying fuzzy or unclear attributes along the similar lines. The paper also proposes a model based approach as well as another heuristic that can deal with screening inconsistent respondents and fuzzy attributes simultaneously.