A Pragmatic Perspective of Measurement (SpringerBriefs in Psychology)

This book aims to address the challenges of defining measurement in social sciences, presenting a conceptualization of the practice of measurement from the perspective of the pragmatic tradition in philosophy. The book reviews key questions regarding the scope and limits of measurement, emphasizing that if the trust that the public places on mea­sures in the social sciences relies on their connection to the notion of measurement in the physical sciences, then the clarification of the similarities and differences between measurement in the physical and the social realms is of central importance to adequately contextualize their relative advantages and limitations. It goes on to present some of the most influential theories of measurement such as the “classical view” of measurement, operationalism, and the representational theory of measurement, as well as more methodological perspectives arising from the practice of researchers in the social sciences, such as the latent variable perspective, and from the physical sciences and engineering, represented by metrology. This overview illustrates that the concept of measurement, and that of quantitative methods, is currently being used across the board in ways that do not necessarily conform to traditional, classical definitions of measurement, pushing the boundaries of what constitutes our technical understanding of it. Moreover, what constitutes a technical understanding of measurement, and the theoretical commitments that it entails, must vary in different areas. In this context, disagreement on what is constitutive of measurement is bound to appear. Pragmatism is presented as a theoretical perspective that offers the advantage of being flexible and fallibilist, encouraging us to abandon the pursuit of a timeless and perfect definition that attempts to establish decontextualized/definitive demarcation criteria for what is truly measurement. This book will be of particular interest for psychologists and other human and social scientists, and more concretely for scholars interested in measurement and assessment in psychological and social measurement. The pragmatic perspective of measurement presents a conceptual framework for researchers to ground their assessment practices acknowledging and dealing with the challenges of social measurement. Series Editors' Preface for David Torres Irribarra A Pragmatic Perspective of Measurement Mathematical Thinking, Social Practices, and the Locus of Science in Psychology References Preface Contents 1 Introduction 1.1 What Is Pragmatism? 1.2 A Brief Overview of Some Pragmatist Ideas 1.2.1 The Primacy of Practice 1.2.2 Fallibilism and Anti-skepticism 1.2.3 Historical and Social Nature of Knowledge 1.2.4 Abandoning Representationalism 1.2.5 Theories as Tools 1.2.5.1 Pragmatism Recapped 2 What Is Measurement? 2.1 Classical Theory of Measurement 2.2 Operationalism 2.3 The Representational Theory of Measurement 2.3.1 Campbell: Between the Classical and Representational Theories 2.3.2 Stevens: Between the Representational and Operationalist Theories 2.3.3 Axiomatic Measurement Theory 2.4 Latent Variable Modeling 2.5 Metrology 2.6 Defining Measurement? 3 Measurement: Prototypes and Resemblances 3.1 The Many Faces of Measurement 3.2 Protypes and Resemblances 3.3 Prototypical Measurement Practices 4 A Pragmatic Perspective of Measurement 4.1 Why an Activity? Why Three of Them? 4.2 Why According to a Model? 4.3 Why a ``relevant'' Attribute? 4.4 Why in Service of a Larger Goal? 5 Contrasting and Comparing 5.1 The Goals of Measurement 5.2 The Activities of Measurement 5.3 The Attributes We Measure 5.4 The Model of the Attribute 5.5 Summary References Index