A COMPARISON OF DIFFERENT METHODS FOR THE ELICITATION OF ATTRIBUTE WEIGHTS - STRUCTURAL MODELING, PROCESS TRACING, AND SELF-REPORTS

This study investigates whether structural modeling, process tracing, and self-reports are able to provide similar information about attribu te weights in multiattribute evaluation processes. In three experiment s subjects had to evaluate a large number of profiles of fictitious pe rsons described on a number of attributes. The experiments differed in type of judgment task, type of subjects, and number of attributes. Su bject attribute weights were derived in all cases by fitting a statist ical model (statistical weights), by analyzing verbal protocols (verba l protocol weights), and by directly asking the subject how important the attributes are for the judgments (subjective weights). Corresponde nce between the three sets of weights is examined in two ways: by comp uting the correlation between three sets of weights and by calculating how adequately the different sets of weights, applied in a linear mod el, can predict the subject's judgments. The first method appears to b e inappropriate for investigating correspondence. The correlations are rather unstable because of the small number of attributes, and apart from that, they tend to underestimate real correspondence when the wei ghts in the respective sets are approximately equal. The second method shows that the three sets of weights are about equally adequate in pr edicting the actual subject judgments. It is concluded that this metho d convincingly demonstrates that the three different ways of eliciting attribute weights yield similar results. (C) 1995 Academic Press, Inc .