Editing Guttman scale (section)

{{Short description|Single, ordinal psychometric scale, allowing original observations to be reproduced.}}
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{{Cleanup rewrite|the detail is excessive, the language is too technical and the tone is not encyclopedic|article|date=January 2021}}
{{More footnotes needed|date=January 2021}}
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In the [[Multivariate statistics|analysis of multivariate observations]] designed to assess subjects with respect to an [[Attribute (research)|attribute]], a '''Guttman scale''' (named after [[Louis Guttman]]) is a single (unidimensional) [[ordinal scale]] for the assessment of the attribute, from which the original observations may be reproduced.  The discovery of a Guttman scale in data depends on their multivariate distribution's conforming to a particular structure (see below). Hence, a Guttman scale is a ''hypothesis'' about the structure of the data, formulated with respect to a specified attribute and a specified population and cannot be constructed for any given set of observations.  Contrary to a widespread belief, a Guttman scale is not limited to dichotomous variables and does not necessarily determine an order among the variables. But if variables are all dichotomous, the variables are indeed ordered by their sensitivity in recording the assessed attribute, as illustrated by Example 1.