Examining stated improvement research methods

Abstract

This article puts forth stated improvement scales, improvement rankings, maximum difference scaling, and Q-sort as stated improvement research methods identified in the literature. For each method, an overview is provided along with their advantages and disadvantages. Future research needs to examine stated improvement research methods in more detail, to identify best practices for each approach, and to determine which method is the most valid and accurate. Stated improvement methods are proposed as a complimentary analysis to more traditional inferred improvement methods.