A Guttmans scale is a psychometric instrument based on a technique developed by Louis Guttman in 1944. An important purpose of the scale is to determine if the underlying variable represents only a single characteristic, that is, one-dimensional. Guttman's insight was that for one-dimensional scales, anyone who agrees with an extreme statement would agree with all previous less extreme propositions.
A perfect Guttmans scaleA perfect Guttmans scale consists of a one-dimensional set of statements that are increasingly sorted by "difficulty". For example, a person who scores a "7" on a 10-point Guttmans scale will agree with the propositions 1 through 7, and disagree with the 8, 9 and 10 positions. An important feature of a Guttmans scale is that all answers to the statements in the instrument are derived based on the final score, that is, the Guttman model is deterministic. Use
The Guttmans scale is mainly used for short questionnaires with a high level of discrimination. The Guttman model works best for hierarchical and highly structured constructions such as social distance, organizational hierarchy and developmental stages. Example
An example of a Guttman scale is an operation of the Bogardus Social Distance Scale:
(At least Extremely)
(Most Extremely)
This scale is just a good Guttmans scale, if everyone agrees with theorem 3, it's also consistent with theorems 1 and 2, and so forth. Externe link
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