Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Importance Weighting in Client Satisfaction Measures: Lessons from the Life Satisfaction Literature

  • Published:
Social Indicators Research Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This article examines the role of perceived importance of service elements, or importance weighting, in client satisfaction measures. Drawing on the debate over importance weighting in the life satisfaction literature, this article assesses the adequacy of and the need for importance weighting in client satisfaction measures. Based on a client satisfaction survey (N = 156), the current study explored (1) whether or not all service elements of homecare services were considered equally important, and (2) whether or not the relationships between overall satisfaction with homecare services and satisfaction with various service elements of homecare services varied significantly across perceived importance of service elements. Findings showed that (1) not all service elements of homecare services were considered equally important, and (2) relationships between overall satisfaction with homecare services and satisfaction with various service elements of homecare services varied significantly across perceived importance of service elements. The findings support the incorporation of perceived importance of service elements into client satisfaction measures.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Aberson, C. L. (2010). Applied power analysis for the behavioral sciences. New York: Psychology Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Andrews, F. M., & Withey, S. B. (1976). Social indicators of well-being: Americans’ perception of life quality. New York: Plenum Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Barrett, L. F. (2006). Valence is a basic building block of emotional life. Journal of Research in Personality, 40, 35–55.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bollen, K. A., & Lennox, R. (1991). Conventional wisdom on measurement: A structural equation perspective. Psychological Bulletin, 110, 305–314.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Campbell, A., Converse, P. E., & Rogers, W. L. (1976). The quality of American life: Perceptions, evaluations, and satisfactions. New York: Russel Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carifio, L., & Perla, R. (2008). Resolving the 50-year debate around using and misusing Likert scales. Medical Education, 42, 1150–1152.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chin, W. W., & Newsted, P. R. (1999). Structural equation modeling analysis with small samples using partial least squares. In R. H. Hole (Ed.), Statistical strategies for small sample research (pp. 307–341). Thousand Oaks: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chou, S. C., Boldy, D. P., & Lee, A. H. (2001). Measuring resident satisfaction in residential aged care. The Gerontologist, 41, 623–631.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, P., Cohen, J., Teresi, J., Marchi, M., & Velez, C. N. (1990). Problems in the measurement of latent variables in structural equations casual models. Applied Psychological Measurement, 14, 183–196.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cummins, R. A. (1996). The domains of life satisfaction: An attempt to order chaos. Social Indicators Research, 38, 303–328.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Diener, E. (1984). Subjective well-being. Psychological Bulletin, 95, 542–575.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Diener, E., Emmons, R. A., Larsen, R. J., & Griffin, S. (1985). The satisfaction with life scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49, 71–74.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Evans, M. G. (1991). The problem of analyzing multiplicative composites: Interactions revisited. American Psychologist, 46, 6–15.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ferrans, C. E. (1990). Development of a quality of life index for patients with cancer. Oncology Nursing Forum, 17, 15–19.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferrans, C., & Powers, M. (1985). Quality of life index: Development and psychometric properties. Advances in Nursing Science, 8, 15–24.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Guardiola, J., & Picazo-Tadeo, A. J. (2014). Building weighted-domain composite indices of life satisfaction with data envelopment analysis. Social Indicators Research, 117, 257–274.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hsieh, C. M. (2003). Counting importance: The case of life satisfaction and relative domain importance. Social Indicators Research, 61, 227–240.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hsieh, C. M. (2004). Income and financial satisfaction among older adults in the United States. Social Indicators Research, 66, 249–266.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hsieh, C. M. (2006). Using client satisfaction to improve case management services for the elderly. Research on Social Work Practice, 16, 605–612.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hsieh, C. M. (2009). Importance counts: The role of relative importance of service elements in client satisfaction measures. Journal of Social Service Research, 35, 23–31.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hsieh, C. M. (2012a). Incorporating perceived importance of service elements into client satisfaction measures. Research on Social Work Practice, 22, 93–99.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hsieh, C. M. (2012b). Perceived importance of service elements in client satisfaction measures. Journal of Social Services Research, 38, 529–540.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hsieh, C. M. (2012c). Should we give up domain importance weighting in QoL measures? Social Indicators Research, 108, 99–109.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hsieh, C. M. (2013). Issues in evaluating importance weighting in quality of life measures. Social Indicators Research, 110, 681–693.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hsieh, C. M. (2014). Beyond multiplication: Incorporating importance into client satisfaction measures. Research on Social Work Practice, 24, 470–476.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hsieh, C. M. (2015). The often overlooked issue of statistical power: This and other issues regarding assessing importance weighting in quality of life measurements. Social Science Research, 50, 303–310.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hsieh, C. M. (2016). Domain importance in subjective well-being measures. Social Indicators Research, 127, 777–792.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hsieh, C. M., & Essex, E. (2006). Measuring client satisfaction among older adults and families. In B. Berkman (Ed.), Handbook of social work in health and aging (pp. 1009–1017). New York: Oxford University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Hsieh, C. M., & Kenagy, G. P. (2014). Measuring quality of life: A case for re-examining the assessment of domain importance weighting. Applied Research in Quality of Life, 9, 63–77.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Inglehart, R. (1978). Value priorities, life satisfaction, and political dissatisfaction among western publics. Comparative Studies in Sociology, 1, 173–202.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jamieson, S. (2004). Likert scales: How to (ab)use them. Medical Education, 38, 1212–1218.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kuzon, W. M., Urbanchek, M. G., & McCabe, S. (1996). The seven deadly sins of statistical analysis. Annals of Plastic Surgery, 37, 265–272.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lindell, M. K., & Whitney, D. J. (2001). Accounting for common method variance in cross-sectional designs. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83, 331–348.

    Google Scholar 

  • Locke, E. A. (1969). What is job satisfaction? Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 4, 309–336.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Locke, E. A. (1976). The nature and causes of job satisfaction. In M. D. Dunnette (Ed.), Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology (pp. 1297–1349). Chicago: Rand McNally.

    Google Scholar 

  • Locke, E. A. (1984). Job satisfaction. In M. Gruneberg & T. Wall (Eds.), Social psychology and organizational behavior (pp. 93–117). London: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mastekaasa, A. (1984). Multiplicative and additive models of job and life satisfaction. Social Indicators Research, 14, 141–163.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McCullaugh, P. (1980). Regression models for ordinal data. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series B, 42, 109–142.

    Google Scholar 

  • McFarlin, D. B., Coster, E. A., Rice, R. W., & Coopper-Alison, T. (1995). Facet importance and job satisfaction: Another look at the range of affect hypothesis. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 16, 489–502.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McFarlin, D. B., & Rice, R. W. (1992). The role of facet importance as a moderator in job satisfaction processes. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 13, 41–54.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nguyen, T. D., Attkisson, C. C., & Stegner, B. L. (1983). Assessment of patient satisfaction: Development and refinement of a service evaluation questionnaire. Evaluation and Program Planning, 16, 109–118.

    Google Scholar 

  • Norman, G. (2010). Likert scales, levels of measurement and the “laws” of statistics. Advances in Health Science Education, 15, 625–632.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pell, G. (2005). Uses and misuses of Likert scales. Medical Education, 39, 97.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Philip, E. J., Merluzzi, T. V., Peterman, A., & Cronk, L. B. (2009). Measurement accuracy in assessing patient’s quality of life: To weight or not to weight domains of quality of life. Quality of Life Research, 18, 775–782.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Podsakoff, P. M., MacKenzie, S. B., Lee, J. Y., & Podsakoff, N. P. (2003). Common method biases in behavioral research: A critical review of the literature and recommended remedies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, 879–903.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reid, P. H., & Gundlach, J. H. (1983). A scale for the measurement of consumer satisfaction with social services. Journal of Social Service Research, 7, 37–54.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rice, R. W., Gentile, D. A., & McFarlin, D. B. (1991a). Facet importance and job satisfaction. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76, 31–39.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rice, R. W., Markus, K., Moyer, R. P., & McFarlin, D. B. (1991b). Facet importance and job satisfaction: Two experimental tests of Locke’s range of affect hypothesis. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 21, 1977–1987.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rojas, M. (2006). Life satisfaction and satisfaction in domains of life: Is it a simple relationship? Journal of Happiness Studies, 7, 467–497.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ruggeri, M., & Greenfield, T. K. (1995). The Italian version of the service satisfaction scale (SSS-30) adapted for community based psychiatric patients: Development, factor analysis and application. Evaluation and Program Planning, 18, 191–202.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Russell, L. B., & Hubley, A. M. (2005). Importance ratings and weighting: Old concerns and new perspectives. International Journal of Testing, 5, 105–130.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Russell, L. B., Hubley, A. M., Palepu, A., & Zumbo, B. D. (2006). Does weighting capture what’s important? Revisiting subjective importance weighting with a quality of life measure. Social Indicators Research, 75, 146–167.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ryff, C. D., & Essex, M. J. (1992). The interpretation of life experience and well-being: The sample case of relocation. Psychology and Aging, 7, 507–517.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shadish, W. R., Cook, T. D., & Campbell, D. T. (2002). Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for generalized quasi-experimental inference (2nd ed.). New York: Houghton Mifflin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Solomon, R. C., & Stone, L. D. (2002). On “positive” and “negative” emotions. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 32, 417–435.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stevens, S. S. (1946). On the theory of scales of measurement. Science, 103(2684), 677–680.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Taylor, S. E., & Fiske, S. T. (1978). Salience, attention, and attribution: Top of the head phenomena. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 11, pp. 249–288). New York: Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Taylor, S., & Thompson, S. (1982). Stalking the elusive vividness effect. Psychological Review, 89, 155–181.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tiefenbach, T., & Kohlbacher, F. (2015). Individual differences in the relationship between domain satisfaction and happiness: The moderating role of domain importance. Personality and Individual Differences, 86, 82–87.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Williams, I. J., & Brown, B. K. (1994). Method variance in organizational behavior and human resources research: Effects on correlations, path coefficients, and hypothesis testing. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Process, 57, 185–209.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wu, C. H. (2008a). Can we weight satisfaction score with importance ranks across life domains? Social Indicators Research, 86, 468–480.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wu, C. H. (2008b). Examining the appropriateness of importance weighting on satisfaction score from range-of-affect hypothesis: Hierarchical linear modeling for within-subject data. Social Indicators Research, 86, 101–111.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wu, C. H., Chen, L. H., & Tsai, Y. M. (2009). Investigating importance weighting of satisfaction scores from a formative model with partial least squares analysis. Social Indicators Research, 90, 351–363.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wu, C. H., & Yao, G. G. (2006a). Do we need to weight item satisfaction by item importance? A perspective from Locke’s range-of-affect hypothesis. Social Indicators Research, 79, 485–502.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wu, C. H., & Yao, G. G. (2006b). Do we need to weight satisfaction scores with importance ratings in measuring quality of life? Social Indicators Research, 78, 305–326.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wu, C. H., & Yao, G. G. (2007). Importance has been considered in satisfaction evaluation: An experimental examination of Locke’s range-of-affect hypothesis. Social Indicators Research, 81, 521–541.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jane Addams College of Social Work, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1040 West Harrison Street (MC 309), Chicago, IL, 60607-7134, USA

    Chang-ming Hsieh

Authors
  1. Chang-ming Hsieh
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chang-ming Hsieh.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Hsieh, Cm. Importance Weighting in Client Satisfaction Measures: Lessons from the Life Satisfaction Literature. Soc Indic Res 138, 45–60 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-017-1664-7

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-017-1664-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation