Comparing the Representativeness of the 1-norm Median for Likert and Free-response Fuzzy Scales

Many questionnaires related to Social Sciences, Medical Diagnosis, Control Engineering, etc. are based on the well-known Likert scales. For its statistical data analysis each categorical response is usually encoded by an integer number. In this paper the convenience of allowing respondents to reply by using a free-response format based on the scale of fuzzy numbers is discussed by developing a comparative study through the mean 1-norm error on the representativeness of the corresponding median for the fuzzy and the integer-encoded Likert scales cases. © Springer-Verlag 2013.status: publishe