Statistical methods for the evaluation of educational services and quality of products

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The book explores statistical methods and models that effectively evaluate educational services and product quality. It compiles contributions from researchers at the universities of Bologna, Firenze, Napoli, and Padova, all presented with consistent notation and a unified perspective. The focus is on methodological advancements tailored to specific evaluation problems using real data sets. Evaluating educational services and analyzing judgments and preferences present significant methodological challenges due to factors such as the observational nature of the context, which leads to selection bias and nuisance factors; the hierarchical structure of data, necessitating multilevel analysis; the multivariate and qualitative nature of dependent variables, which calls for specialized statistical methodologies; and the presence of unobservable factors like satisfaction, requiring latent variable models. Additionally, the simultaneous occurrence of pleasure and uncertainty in judgments demands the specification and estimation of mixture models. The first part of the book specifically addresses latent variable models.