This open access book proposes a conceptual framework for understanding measurement across a broad range of scientific fields and areas of application, such as physics, engineering, education, and psychology. It addresses contemporary issues and controversies within measurement in light of the framework, including operationalism, definitional uncertainty, and the relations between measurement and computation, and describes how the framework, operating as a shared concept system, supports understanding measurement’s work in different domains, using examples in the physical and human sciences.
This revised and expanded second edition features a new analysis of the analogies and the differences between the error/uncertainty-related approach adopted in physical measurement and the validity-related approach adopted in psychosocial measurement. In addition, it provides a better analysis and presentation of measurement scales, in particular about their relations with quantity units, and introduces the measurand identification/definition as a part of the "Hexagon Framework" along with new examples from the physical and psychosocial sciences. Researchers and academics across a wide range of disciplines including biological, physical, social, and behavioral scientists, as well as specialists in measurement and philosophy appreciate the work’s fresh and provocative approach to the field at a time when sound measurements of complex scientific systems are increasingly essential to solving critical global problems.
Author(s): Luca Mari, Mark Wilson, Andrew Maul
Series: Springer Series in Measurement Science and Technology
Edition: 2
Publisher: Springer
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 338
City: Cham
Foreword by Roman Z. Morawski
Foreword by Robert J. Mislevy
Educational Assessment and Educational Measurement
Opening the Black Box in Educational Measurement
Conclusion
Preface
For Whom Did We Write This Book?
The Structure of the Chapters in This Book
About This Second Edition
Acknowledgments
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Boxes
1 Introduction
1.1 Why We Wrote This Book
1.1.1 Is Measurement Necessarily Physical?
1.2 Some Familiar and Not-So Familiar Contexts for Measurement
1.2.1 A Brief Introduction to Temperature and Its Measurement
1.2.2 A Brief Introduction to Reading Comprehension Ability and Its Measurement
1.2.3 An Initial View of Psychosocial Measurement from a Physical Science Perspective
1.3 The Path We Will Travel in This Book
References
2 Fundamental Concepts in Measurement
2.1 Introduction
2.2 The Abstract Structure of Measurement
2.2.1 Measurement as an Empirical Process
2.2.2 Measurement as a Designed Process
2.2.3 Measurement as a Process Whose Input is a Property of an Object
2.2.4 Measurement as a Property Evaluation
2.3 Between the Empirical World and the Information World
References
3 Technical and Cultural Contexts for Measurement Systems
3.1 Introduction
3.2 The Quality of Measurement and Its Results
3.2.1 A Sketch of the Framework
3.2.2 The Error Approach (or: True Value Approach)
3.2.3 The Uncertainty Approach
3.2.4 Basic Components of Measurement Uncertainty
3.2.5 Measurement Uncertainty and Measurement Results
3.3 The Operational Context
3.3.1 The Metrological System
3.3.2 The Measurement Environment
3.4 The Conceptual Context
3.4.1 Measurement and Property Identification
3.4.2 Measurement and Measure
References
4 Philosophical Perspectives on Measurement
4.1 Introduction
4.1.1 Measurement Between Objectivity and Subjectivity
4.2 Characterizing Measurement
4.2.1 Naive Realist Perspectives on Measurement
4.2.2 Operationalist Perspectives on Measurement
4.2.3 Representationalist Perspectives on Measurement
4.3 The Concept of Validity in Psychosocial Measurement
4.3.1 Early Perspectives on Validity
4.3.2 Construct Validity
4.3.3 An Argument-Based Approach to Validity
4.3.4 Causal Perspectives on Validity
4.4 An Interpretive Framework
4.4.1 Exploring Perspectives on Measurement
4.4.2 Toward a Different Perspective?
4.5 A Preliminary Synthesis: Model-Dependent Realism
References
5 What is Measured?
5.1 Introduction
5.1.1 The Possible Meanings of the Basic Evaluation Equation
5.1.2 A Pragmatic Introduction to the Problem
5.1.3 Anticipating the Main Outcomes
5.2 Some Clarifications About Properties
5.2.1 Properties of Objects as Entities of the World
5.2.2 Properties and Predicates
5.2.3 Properties and Relations
5.2.4 From Properties of Formal Logic to Properties of Measurement Science
5.2.5 Context Dependence of Properties
5.2.6 Indistinguishability of Properties of Objects
5.3 A Philosophical Interlude
5.3.1 Do Individual Properties Exist?
5.3.2 Individual Properties as Universals: An Explanation
5.3.3 Do We Really Need Properties?
References
6 Values, Scales, and the Existence of Properties
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Towards Values of Properties
6.2.1 Values of Properties: What They Are not
6.2.2 Values of Properties Cannot Be Discarded in Contemporary Measurement
6.3 Constructing Values of Quantities
6.3.1 Operating on (Additive) Quantities of Objects
6.3.2 On Reference Objects and Reference Quantities
6.3.3 Alternative Reference Quantities and Their Relations, i.e., Scale Transformations
6.3.4 Generalizing the strategy of Definition of Reference Quantities
6.3.5 Values of Quantities: What They Are
6.3.6 Beyond Additivity: The Example of Temperature
6.3.7 Beyond Additivity: The Example of Reading Comprehension Ability
6.4 The Epistemic Role of Basic Evaluation Equations
6.5 Generalizing the Framework to Non-quantitative Properties
6.5.1 The Scope of the Quantitative/non-Quantitative Distinction
6.5.2 From Values of Quantities to Values of Properties
6.5.3 Property Evaluation Types
6.6 About the Existence of General Properties
6.6.1 Properties and Variables
6.6.2 Justifications for the Existence of Properties
References
7 Modeling Measurement and Its Quality
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Direct and Indirect Measurement
7.2.1 Recovering a Meaningful Distinction Between Direct and Indirect Measurement
7.2.2 Refining the Distinction Between Direct and Indirect Measurement: First Step
7.2.3 Refining the Distinction Between Direct and Indirect Measurement: Second Step
7.3 A Structural Model of Direct Measurement
7.3.1 The Design and Construction of a Measuring Instrument: backgrounder
7.3.2 The Stages of Direct Measurement
7.3.3 An Alternative Implementation
7.3.4 The Hexagon Framework
7.3.5 An Example Application of the Model in the Human Sciences
7.4 Measurement Quality According to the Model
7.4.1 Measurement that Involves Feedback
7.4.2 Uncertainties in the Stages of Direct Measurement
7.4.3 Quality of Measurement as Objectivity and Intersubjectivity
7.4.4 Can Measurement Be “Bad”?
References
8 Conclusion
8.1 Introduction
8.1.1 Syntactic, Semantic, and Pragmatic Information
8.1.2 A Semiotic Perspective on Measurement
8.2 The Path We Have Walked so Far
8.3 Can There Be One Meaning of “Measurement” Across the Sciences?
8.3.1 Different Subject Matters, Different Processes…
8.3.2 … with Some Structural Commonalities…
8.3.3 … and a Common Emphasis on Trustworthiness…
8.3.4 … and a Focus on Producing Explicitly Justifiable Information
8.3.5 Consequences for the Theory and the Practice of Measurement
References
Appendix A A Basic Concept System of Measurement
Index
