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Article
Statistical Measurement of Trees' Similarity
Quality and Quantity
  • Sahar Sabbaghan
  • Cecil Eng Huang Chua, Missouri University of Science and Technology
  • Lesley A. Gardner
Abstract

Diagnostic theories are fundamental to Information Systems practice and are represented in trees. One way of creating diagnostic trees is by employing independent experts to construct such trees and compare them. However, good measures of similarity to compare diagnostic trees have not been identified. This paper presents an analysis of the suitability of various measures of association to determine the similarity of two diagnostic trees using bootstrap simulations. We find that three measures of association, Goodman and Kruskal's Lambda, Cohen's Kappa, and Goodman and Kruskal's Gamma (J Am Stat Assoc 49(268):732-764, 1954) each behave differently depending on what is inconsistent between the two trees thus providing both measures for assessing alignment between two trees developed by independent experts as well as identifying the causes of the differences.

Department(s)
Business and Information Technology
Keywords and Phrases
  • Diagnostic theory,
  • Threshold building,
  • Tree
Document Type
Article - Journal
Document Version
Final Version
File Type
text
Language(s)
English
Rights
© 2020 The Authors, All rights reserved.
Creative Commons Licensing
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
Publication Date
6-1-2020
Publication Date
01 Jun 2020
Disciplines
Citation Information
Sahar Sabbaghan, Cecil Eng Huang Chua and Lesley A. Gardner. "Statistical Measurement of Trees' Similarity" Quality and Quantity Vol. 54 (2020) p. 781 - 806 ISSN: 0033-5177; 1573-7845
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/cecil-chua/68/