Applications of information measures to measure the ambiguity level of Qualitative Statements
by
Gurdial Arora
Dept of Maths, Xavier University of Louisiana, New Orleans, LA 70125,USA

Many times it has been observed that there is a lot of ambiguity in the information that is being communicated. Ambiguity in statements not only creates confusion for the reader but also it fails to serve the intended purpose of the message. Often survey developers use a pretest technique to reduce the level of ambiguity in their questionnaire. Ambiguity Index, a new measure discussed in this article, is devised to help not only survey developers but also professionals in other fields in reducing the level of ambiguity in statements. An example is discussed to illustrate the simplicity in use and understanding of this measure and the author have also provided some scenarios in which this measure can be adopted by professionals in other fields. It is also shown that the results from this new measure are quite comparable to the results obtained from different measures of information that are widely used in the literature.

Date received: September 5, 2002

Copyright © 2002 by the author(s). The author(s) of this document and the organizers of the conference have granted their consent to include this abstract in Atlas Conferences Inc. Document # cais-11.