Guttman scale, scalogram analysis

Guttman scale, scalogram analysis

or

scalogram method

an ATTITUDE SCALE, named after its designer, Guttman, which firstly assesses whether the attitude to be studied, e.g. racial prejudice, involves a single dimension. If it does, then it will be possible to arrange, hierarchically and ordinally, a series of attitude questions of increasing intensity such that agreement with a given statement implies agreement with statements of lower intensity. That is, they assume that a cut-off point exists within any set of attitude statements such that failure to endorse a particular item means that no item of greater intensity will be endorsed. Respondents’ attitudes can then be compared by a simple score, and any individual's response towards any item is known from this score. In practice, perfect Guttman scales probably do not exist, and a 10% margin of error is generally considered to be acceptable. Compare LIKERT SCALE.

Collins Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2000