LATENT STRUCTURE ANALYSIS AND ITS RELATION TO FACTOR ANALYSIS

TATENT structure analysis is a recent contribution to the theory of Jj attitude measurement. It has been formulated and developed by Lazarsfeld [2] as a mathematical model for describing the interrelationships of items in an attitude questionnaire. On the basis of the model it is possible to make some inferences about hypothetical variables assumed to underly the observed responses to the set of items. In its logic as well as in its mathematics, latent structure analysis bears a close resemblance to multiple factor analysis. Before discussing this similarity, however, a brief description of latent structure is in order.