Guttman scaling was developed by Louis Guttman and was first used as part of the classic work on the American Soldier. Guttman scaling is applied to a set of binary questions answered by a set of subjects. The goal of the analysis is to derive a single dimension that can be used to position both the questions and the subjects. The position of the questions and subjects on the dimension can then be used to give them a numerical value. Guttman scaling is used in social psychology and in education.

An Example of a Perfect Guttman Scale

Suppose that we test a set of children and that we assess their mastery of the following types of mathematical concepts: (a) counting from 1 to 50, (b) solving addition ...

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