The physical status of all people aged 75 and over living in and around Melton Mowbray was assessed by the responses to a series of questions on the activities of daily living that the respondents could perform. Three methods of producing an index of disability from these separate questions are investigated: principal component analysis, Guttman scaling, and a variation of Guttman scaling known...

Wealth ranking in given field sites can be problematic for a number of reasons. This article explores the usefulness of Guttman Scaling and AnthroPac software in such contexts, using a small fishing community on the northern coast of Ecuador as an example. The author provides a step-by-step description of procedures for implementing and analyzing Guttman Scale methodology and discusses the issu...

In three perceptual classification experiments involving ill-defined category structures, extreme prototype enhancement effects were observed in which prototypes were classified more accurately than other category instances. Such empirical findings can prove theoretically challenging to exemplar-based models of categorization if prototypes are psychological central tendencies of category instan...

Feature Pattern Analysis (FPA), as a part of the theory of data (Coombs, 1964), can be interpreted as a formal model of some procedures frequently applied in the behavioral and social sciences, e.g., for Guttman scaling, Parallelogram Analysis, Likert scaling, the Semantic Differential, and the Kelly Grid. FPA may also be used as a scaling procedure for nominal and ordinal data with qualitative...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the psychometric properties of the Rivermead Motor Assessment by Rasch analysis and conventional statistics to improve its clinical utility. METHODS A total of 107 patients after stroke were evaluated using the Rivermead Motor Assessment and Functional Independence Measure (FIM). Scaling properties were assessed using Mokken scaling, internal construct validity using ...

In English as a Second Language Teaching and Testing situations, it is common to infer about learners’ reading ability based on his or her total score on a reading test. This assumes the unidimensional and reproducible nature of reading items. However, few researches have been conducted to probe the issue through psychometric analyses. In the present study, the IELTS exemplar module C (1994) wa...

PURPOSE The Distance Vision Scale (DVS) is a self-assessment of visual acuity (VA). Like VA testing in which letter reading becomes progressively difficult through the test, DVS questions have a hierarchy of difficulty (Guttman scale). The aims were to determine whether the DVS fulfills Guttman scaling criteria and to test the relationship between DVS score and VA in a cataract population. ME...

Williams et al. (1976) have suggested the use of Guttman scaling for scoring an index of disability. Two examples confirm the applicability of this method in the context of survey research. One of these examples is of a disablement scale widely employed in local authority social services research. For the purpose of survey assessment of disabled populations, the precise choice of scaling method...

Stages of growth models have been used widely in both organizational research and information technology management research. However, stages of growth models are criticized for lack of empirical validity. This paper develops a survey instrument to empirically validate a knowledge management technology stage model. The survey instrument has several parts that enable cross-examination of respons...