On 4 Apr 2002 06:21:00 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Seymann, Richard) wrote: > This isn't exactly a statistics question, but at least one possible solution > might employ a statistics tool. > > Here's the problem: > > In order to assign roommates, admitted freshmen are given a list of ten > characteristics and asked to rank-order their preferences from 1 for most > important to 10 for least important. The objective is to match roommates' [ snip, rest ]
Rank order? Preference? Most important? Biometrically speaking, that certainly seems like a wholly amateur effort. Why settle for 'ranks'? - that throws out so much anchoring information that you can never get back. And, what dimensions are there in the survey, anyway? It used to be that "preference" had to do with "like-don't like". That would make some sense for roomies. Someone has translated that to "importance"? Huh? -- Rich Ulrich, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.pitt.edu/~wpilib/index.html . . ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . =================================================================
