Comparing Weighting Approaches in Scalogram Analysis in the Wa Municipality in the Upper West Region of Ghana

Abstract

This study examined and compared the objectively-weighted, expert-based-weighted and stakeholder-based weighted Scalogram approaches based on their centrality indices and factors considered in assigning weights to the functions. A mixed-method approach, comprising both quantitative and qualitative techniques were employed to gather primary and secondary data for the study. All the three Scalograms with different weighting techniques were analyzed in Microsoft Excel, focusing on centrality and weighted centrality indices and simple linear regression models. The study discovered that the grand total centrality index of the objective Scalogram is 4,105.60, the expert-based Scalogram is 10,294.2 while the stakeholder-based one is 10,429.80. The co-efficients of determination for the three are 0.9892, 0.9757 and 0.9812 respectively, giving explanatory powers of 98.92%, 97.57% and 98.12% respectively. It is recommended that due to resource constraints, planners should rely more on the objective-based approach, followed by the stakeholder-based approach and then the expert-based approach, since the latter approach has rather reduced the explanatory power of population by increasing values of the centrality indices. Again, bottlenecks to the development of Area Council headquarters (intermediate settlements between Wa and lower-level settlements) should be tackled for efficient spatial distribution of functions. The contribution of this article to the spatial and development planning literature is its juxtaposition of the three techniques in Scalogram analysis.