Dealing with heterogeneity in ordinal responses

In sample surveys where people are asked to express their personal opinions it is conceivable to register a high level of indecision among respondents and this circumstance generates sub-optimal statistical analyses caused by large heterogeneity in the responses. In this paper, we discuss a model belonging to the class of generalized cub models which is worthwhile for this kind of surveys. Then, we examine some real case studies where the observed heterogeneity and the subjects’ indecision can be analyzed with the proposed approach leading to convincing interpretations. A comparison with more consolidated models and some concluding remarks end the paper.