Quantifying information content in survey data by entropy

DOI10.3390/E12020161MaRDI QIDQ653347zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Fredrik A. Dahl, Nina Østerås

Publication date 9 January 2012

Published in Entropy (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.3390/e12020161

zbMATH Keywords

dataentropyinformationquestionnairesurvey

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Information theory (general) (94A15) Measures of information, entropy (94A17) Sampling theory in information and communication theory (94A20)

Review text

Summary: We apply Shannon entropy as a measure of information content in survey data, and define information efficiency as the empirical entropy divided by the maximum attainable entropy. In a case study of the Norwegian Function Assessment Scale, entropy calculations show that the 5-point response version has higher information efficiency than the 4-point version.

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Cites work

• A Mathematical Theory of Communication
• An information-theoretic approach to the effective usage of auxiliary information from survey data

Cited in

(4)

• Efficiency of a university timetable. An application of entropy of choice.
• Monitoring the teaching-learning process via an entropy based index
• Entropies with and without probabilities. Applications to questionnaires
• An application of entropy in survey scale

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