Validation in the Software Metric Development Process

In this paper the validation of software metrics will be examined. Two approaches will be combined: representational measurement theory and a validation network scheme. The development process of a software metric will be described, together with validities for the three phases of the metric development process. Representation axioms from measurement theory are used both for the formal and empirical validation. The differentiation of validities according to these phases unifies several validation approaches found in the software metric's literature

Spatial representation and low vision: two studies on the content, accuracy and utility of mental representations

The paper reports on two studies being conducted with students from Dorton College - Royal London Society for the Blind (RLSB) in Kent. The first experiment will examine the content and accuracy of mental representations of a well-known environment. Students will walk a route around the college campus and learn the position of ten buildings or structures. They will then be asked to make heading judgments, estimate distances, complete a spatial cued model and sequentially visit a series of locations. The second experiment will examine the strategies and coding heuristics used to explore a complex novel environment. Students will be asked to explore a maze and learn the location of different places. Their search patterns will be digitally tracked, coded and analyzed using GIS software.Students will be tested using the same methods as in the first experiment and their performance level will be correlated with their exploratory patterns. Throughout the paper we are reminded that construct validity can only be secured by employing multiple converging techniques in the collection and analysis of cognitive data. Methods should be designed to test content and accuracy as well as the utility of mental representations

Increasing environmental sustainability by incorporating stakeholders' intensities of preferences into the policy formation

In this paper a tractable methodology is presented to improve environmental sustainability by incorporating stakeholders’ intensities of preferences into the decision making process. The environmental decision making will be controversial when there is a complex issue at hand. The difficulty comes up as stakeholders cannot see how their preferences are taken into account in the policy making process. To reduce this controversy, we propose a qualitative method to elicit stakeholders’ intensities of preferences towards a set of environmental services. Subsequently, the elicited intensities of preferences are aggregated by a mathematical approach on each single criterion. Finally, a multi-criteria approach is applied to use the aggregated values across all criteria to provide the analyst with a rank order of existing alternative plans. In this way, the stakeholders are able to verify that their opinion is taken into account, even if it is contrary to the majority voice. The natural resources manager will benefit from an increased insight into the prevalent opinion on each of the criteria through the supplied social intensities of preferences, enabling a more easily communicated justification of the final decision, and an augmented tractability of the decision making process.Sustainability, stakeholder's preferences, tractable decision making, social support, qualitative valuation, Environmental Economics and Policy,

Ein Aspekt der qualitativen wissenschaftlichen Untersuchungen im Sport: deren daten als variablenwerte

Initiated by the practical research problems with an evaluation of categorized research material in several qualitative studies in physical and sport education a more general methodological problem is dealt with, viz. how to treat the data of such studies. Therefore, starting from the general methodological postulate of necessity of the “research variable” concept even in the qualitative research (Blahus 1997) the authorities to bring further methodological support for the so-called integrative approach as a unified scientific strategy. The classification of categories produced by categorization during a qualitative research into purely qualitative, graded, and distanced categories is interconnected with the author’s previous classification of random variables (1993, 1996), with levels of measurement scales, and with the dichotomy of string vs. numeric variables of computational software. The Fundamental Postulate (cf. FPELSA in Sec. 8) for processing any kind of data, including the qualitative ones, was formulated on the basis that the data had to be justifiably recognized as values of variables prior to their meaningful evaluation.Ganz praktische Schwierigkeiten wissenschaftlicher Untersuchung bei der Bewertung des kategorisierten Untersuchungsmaterials in einigen qualitativen Studien auf dem Gebiet der Sporterzichung und Sportpädagogik haben diese Studie von einem sehr allgemeinen methodologischen Problem angeregt: wie sollen die Daten aus den qualitativen Untersuchungen verarbeitet werden. Von dem allgemeinen methodologischen Postulat ausgehend, dass die Idee der “Untersuchungsvariable” auch bei den qualitativen Untersuchungen unvermeidbar sei (Blahuš, 1997), versucht der Autor, den sogenannten vollständigen Zugang als die einheitliche vollständige wissenschaftliche Strategie methodologisch kräftiger zu unterstützen. Die Klassifizierung der während der qualitativen Untersuchung erschaffenen Kategorien in die völlig qualitativen graduierten und distanzierten Kategorien ist mit der früheren Klassifizierung der Zufallsvariablen desselben Autors (Blahuš, 1993; 1996) sowie mit den Messleiterebenen und mit der Dichotomie, die in den Computerprogrammen zwischen den numerischen und den Reihenvariablen entsteht, eng verbunden. Das Grundgesetz der Verarbeitung irgendwelcher, also auch qualitativer Daten, basiert auf der Tatsache, dass, bevor eine sinnvolle Bewertung und Interpretation unternommen wird, die Daten mit Recht und absoluter Zuversicht als die Variablenwerte erkannt und angenomen werden müssen