Guttman Scaling with Word Processors

Abstract

WordPerfect 5.0, WordStar 4.0, or similar word-processing systems, can serve to revitalize Guttman scaling—a methodological approach to item analysis—both as a research tool and, perhaps more importantly, as a teaching aid. Described here is a fast, easily understood, hands-on techmque which emphasizes the visual properties of scales and their construction. Since it permits the researcher to take an effective role in scale construction, scaling with word processors can be used as a primary research tool—there do not seem to be any limitations to sample size—or as an instructional supplement. In contrast to conventional software packages which tend to obscure scaling processes once data have been entered, scaling with a word-processing system clarifies and illuminates the act of scaling itself as well as such complicated methodological issues as domains of meaning, unidimensionality, unilinearity, and cumulativity. Keywords: scaling, Guttman scales, word processing, statistical research.