Measurement across the Sciences: Developing a Shared Concept System for Measurement (Springer Series in Measurement Science and Technology)

✍ Scribed by Luca Mari, Mark Wilson, Andrew Maul

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 2021
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 319
• Edition: 1st ed. 2021
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This 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. The authors, who themselves span these disciplines, argue that the justification of the public trust attributed to measurement results can in principle apply identically to both physical and psychosocial properties. They further argue that the lack of a common conceptualization of measurement hampers interdisciplinary communication and limits the ability to share knowledge. They advance their views by first surveying the conceptual history of the philosophy of measurement and arguing that classical, operationalist and representational perspectives on measurement each make important contributions but also each have important shortcomings. A synthesis is then offered as the foundation for a new conceptual framework. The authors describe how the framework, which operates as a shared concept system, supports understanding measurement’s work in different domains, using examples in the physical and human sciences. They consider connections and consequences with respect to causality, objectivity, and intersubjectivity, among other topics, and how measurement science concepts and issues are construed across these disciplines and settings. They also address contemporary issues and controversies within measurement in the light of the framework, including operationalism, definitional uncertainty, and the relations between measurement and computation. The book concludes with a justification for the basic claim that measurement is an empirical and informational process that produces explicitly justifiable information.

Researchers and academics across a wide range of disciplines including biological, physical, social and behavioral scientists, as well as specialists in measurement and philosophy will 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.

✦ Table of Contents

Foreword
Foreword
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
Acknowledgments
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Chapter 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
Chapter 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
Chapter 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
Chapter 4: Philosophical perspectives on measurement
4.1 Introduction
4.1.1 Measurement between objectivity and subjectivity
4.2 Characterizing measurement
4.2.1 Naïve 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 Towards a different perspective?
4.5 A preliminary synthesis: model-dependent realism
References
Chapter 5: What is measured?
5.1 Introduction
5.1.1 The meaning 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
Chapter 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 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 nonquantitative properties
6.5.1 The scope of the quantitative/nonquantitative 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
Chapter 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
7.3.2 The stages of direct measurement
7.3.2.1 Transduction
7.3.2.2 Matching
7.3.2.3 Local scale application
7.3.2.4 Public scale construction
7.3.2.5 Calibration
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
7.3.5.1 Transduction
7.3.5.2 Matching
7.3.5.3 Local scale construction and application
7.3.5.4 Interlude: reality check
7.3.5.5 Public scale construction and application, and calibration
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
7.4.2.1 Regarding the definition of the measurand
7.4.2.2 Regarding the definition and dissemination of the public scale and calibration
7.4.2.3 Regarding transduction and matching
7.4.3 Quality of measurement as objectivity and intersubjectivity
7.4.4 Can measurement be “bad”?
References
Chapter 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
Introduction
Alphabetical list of the entries
References
Index of concepts and authors’ names
Index