For a stats class, I have a question in which an occupational therapist uses a checklist about meal preparation. The checklist consisted of five statements to which persons responded using the following 1 to 7 scale:
1 = strongly disagree
2 = disagree
3 = slightly disagree
4 = neither agree nor disagree
5 = slightly agree
6 = agree
7 = strongly agree
Katie and Lorenz have been married for over 50 years. The occupational therapist asks you to calculate a city block distance in order to measure the extent to which the couple has the same view of meal preparation. What is the city block distance?
The following were Katie’s ratings:
6 1. I am responsible for preparing most of the meals in our household.
5 2. It takes a lot of time to prepare a nice meal.
6 3. We eat a variety of different foods over the course of a week
5 4. It takes a lot of energy to prepare a nice meal.
5 5. I enjoy eating a lot of different foods.
The following were Lorenz’s ratings.
1 1. I am responsible for preparing most of the meals in our household.
6 2. It takes a lot of time to prepare a nice meal.
6 3. We eat a variety of different foods over the course of a week
5 4. It takes a lot of energy to prepare a nice meal.
4 5. I enjoy eating a lot of different foods.
So to calculate the city block distance, you use Dcb = (y1-y2) + (x1-x2), etc. In this case, Katie is 1 and Lorenz is 2, and each letter corresponds to an answer on the questionnaire. So we want to figure out if these two people have the same perspective on their meal habits, so we go Dcb = (6-1)+(5-6)+(6-6)+(5-5)+(5-4).
Normally, the sum of the above equation would be our difference. BUT in this case, we have to read item 1 more closely, because both Katie and Lorenz are saying that Katie is responsible for preparing most of their meals. So they aren't actually disagreeing, they are mostly agreeing.
I'm not sure how to rectify this. Katie has said that she agrees (6) that she prepares most of the meals, and Lorenz said he strongly disagrees (1) that he prepares most of the meals. They are essentially saying the same thing here, but not quite; if Katie had put a 7 and Lorenz had put a 1, I would say they were absolutely in agreement in terms of who makes the meals, and would put that difference as a 0 for the first question on the scale. But 6 isn't the exact opposite of 1, so how do I account for that in my calculation?
To clarify: the question specifically wants us to determine the similarity of the two people's viewpoints on meal habits (this is for a health research statistics class). We are supposed to figure out the correct way to compensate for this in our calculation, but have been given no direction on how to do so.