Applying a fuzzy questionnaire in a peer review process

Abstract

This paper introduces the application and the results of a fuzzy number based questionnaire used for evaluating lecturers’ performance in a newly launched peer review programme in order to enhance the reliability of peer evaluations. In our approach, the membership function of the fuzzy number is composed of an increasing and a decreasing sigmoid membership function conjuncted by Dombi’s intersection operator. Compared to the traditional Likert scale-based evaluation, the proposed fuzzy number based methodology allows peer reviewers to express their uncertainty and the variability of the reviewed lecturer’s performance within a single lecture and during a semester in a quantitative way. By utilising the principles of Dombi’s Pliant Arithmetic, fuzzy Likert scale based evaluations given by peer reviewers can be cumulated by aggregating the parameters of the left- and right-hand sides of the fuzzy numbers separately. This property results in a much simpler statistical analysis of the gathered data than the methods previously proposed in the literature. A demonstrative case study illustrates our main contributions in peer evaluation.