A Comparison of Normalized and Non-Normalized Multiplicative Subjective Importance Weighting in Quality of Life Measurement

In quality of life (QOL) studies, importance weighting generally refers to the incorporation of perceived importance as a weighting factor into measures of QOL. Although there are issues with multiplicative scores (multiplying satisfaction and importance scores), the use of multiplicative scores as a method of non-normalized importance weighting remains common. In addition, researchers have suggested assessing importance weighting by inspecting life domains individually (i.e., within-domain perspective). Analyzing survey data from a sample of 328 Chinese adults, we (1) compared the non-normalized importance weighting method (multiplicative scores) and the normalized linear importance weighting method and showed that they not only represented different concepts but also produced different empirical results for importance weighting, (2) provided empirical evidence demonstrating the problems of assessing importance weighting from a within-domain perspective, and (3) presented the alternative variables to be included in regression analysis to assess normalized liner importance weighting.