Abstract
This chapter presents a pragmatic definition of measurement as an activity of classification, ordination, or quantification of a set of elements according to a model of a relevant attribute in service of a larger goal. Each element of this definitions is discussed in detail, making the case for the advantages of conceptualizing measurement in this way.
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Notes
- 1.
What about counting? From this ppm, there would not be an Aristotelian distinction between discrete and continuous quantities, therefore there would be no need to exclude a priori counting as a form of measurement.
- 2.
One difficulty not often discussed among proponents of the rechristening of some practices as “assessment” instead of “measurement” is the assumption that a comparable word at that level of generality exists in every language. This is by no means a given, and at least in Spanish, there is no separate word for “assessment” aside from words like medición, evaluación, and valoración that, respectively, would correspond to measurement, evaluation, and valuation.
- 3.
A measuring transducer is defined in the vim as a devise, used in measurement, that provides an output quantity having a specified relation to the input quantity (Joint Committee for Guides in Metrology 2012).
- 4.
Especially given Rorty’s panrelational stance, where absent the idea of essential features, “there is nothing to be known about [objects] except an initially large, and forever expandable, web of relations to other objects. Everything that can serve as the term of a relation can be dissolved into another set of relations, and so on for ever. There are, so to speak, relations all the way down, all the way up, and all the way out in every direction: you never reach something which is not just one more nexus of relations.” (pp. 53–54).
- 5.
Another revision to Box’ famous quote, made in an akin spirit but from a different line of argumentation, was posed by Tarpey (2009), who proposes that “All models are right, [but] most are useless”.
- 6.
On a personal note, being “colorblind” myself I have learned the hard way not to make those kinds of statements about color.
- 7.
An example of this controversy was the debate generated by the introduction of Consequential Validity as part of the 1999 Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing. See Sect. 5.1 for a discussion on this point.
- 8.
Although some, like Hand (2004) for example, insist that pragmatic criteria are limited to prediction, there is in principle no reason for such limitation. A pragmatic perspective can seek, for instance, manipulation or explanation.
- 9.
There is no current English translation of this book. I thank Rebecca Freund for kindly translating the relevant passages discussed here.
- 10.
In the original French Binet uses the word classement, which can mean, depending of the context either classification or ordering, and the context of this passage seems to be used in this last sense.
- 11.
This quote was brought to my attention by the detailed analysis that Michell (2012b) makes of it and its relation to the concept of heterogeneous orders, although he draws markedly different conclusions from it.
- 12.
In the original French this quote also uses the word classement, but in this case the English translation treats it as “classification” instead of “ordering.” In light of the omitted footnote and the overall context, it is more likely that Binet meant “ordering” instead.
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Torres Irribarra, D. (2021). A Pragmatic Perspective of Measurement. In: A Pragmatic Perspective of Measurement. SpringerBriefs in Psychology(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74025-2_4
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