Thurstone Scaling

One of the earliest data collection methods for the measurement of attitudes is Thurstone’s law of comparative judgment (LCJ). The LCJ, which has its roots in psychophysical scaling, first develops a large number of attitude statements or stimuli and then uses information from judges to place the stimuli along a unidimensional continuum. There are three methods for collecting data from the judges: the method of equal-appearing intervals, the method of paired comparisons, and the method of successive intervals. After the scale positions of the stimuli have been determined, the stimuli are presented to research subjects or respondents whose attitudes are then measured. The average position of the items endorsed by a particular respondent serves as the estimate of the respondent’s latent attitude. After providing background ...