Scalogram, first proposed by Guttman (1950), is a descriptive ordering technique used in the social sciences to investigate how heterogeneous behavioral items may temporally relate to one another. In the present study, we explored whether there was a predictable temporal order of acquisition among selected swim skill items used in the instruction of swimming to identify whether the preferred order suggested preferences for the order in which to teach the same swim skills. A convenience sample of thirty-one college students enrolled in University instructional swimming classes performed each of the items in random order while each performance was videotaped by the investigators. After establishing acceptable inter-observer objectivity exceeding P . 0.80, the investigators observed each of the video trials and scored each item for each participant as pass-fail using pre-established criteria based on the American Red Cross Swimming and Water Safety learn-to-swim program (2004). The Red Cross order for teaching the tested skills was confirmed as the best order identified by the scalogram for young adult participants with a coefficient of reproducibility of CR = 0.93. Limitations in the procedures and results suggested the need for several future studies to identify whether the order could be applied to other ages and ability levels as well as to how susceptible the scalogram technique is to idiosyncratic instructional experiences of participants.
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