Analysing ordinal data to measure customer satisfaction: a comparison between the Rasch Model and CatPCA

The paper compares two models to construct customer satisfaction measures, the Rasch Model and the Nonlinear (Categorical) Principal Component Analysis. The aim is to discuss the Rasch Model and Nonlinear PCA differences and similarities both from a theoretical point of view and from the data point of view, using the data coming from a survey on the evaluation of the quality of the service offered by Brescia nursery schools.