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Introduction

David L. Streiner and Geoffrey R. Norman

in Health Measurement Scales: A practical guide to their development and use

This introductory chapter presents the rationale for developing scales, and why they must be reliable and valid. It also gives a general overview of the organization of the book as a whole.

Introduction and Overview

Neil Abell, David W. Springer, and Akihito Kamata

in Developing and Validating Rapid Assessment Instruments

This introductory chapter overviews the history of construct conceptualization and measurement, emphasizing events and debates in social work illustrating broader trends in the social and behavioral ... More

This introductory chapter overviews the history of construct conceptualization and measurement, emphasizing events and debates in social work illustrating broader trends in the social and behavioral sciences. Key actors are identified, and their contributions to the framing of social problems, shaping of psychometric methods, and the interpretation and application of scales, tests, and indexes are summarized. The importance of carefully considering the social consequences and implications of construct definitions is introduced, with emphasis on the nature and scope of the target problem and attention to who will use the new measure, with whom, and for what purposes. The influence of evidence-based practice is discussed, and an overview of subsequent chapter objectives is provided.Less

Issues and Examples of Intranational Research

Tony Tripodi and Miriam Potocky-Tripodi

in International Social Work Research: Issues and Prospects

This chapter presents examples of intranational research as defined in Chapter 4. Five studies are described. The studies include research pertaining to immigrants and refugees from Korea, Iraq, ... More

This chapter presents examples of intranational research as defined in Chapter 4. Five studies are described. The studies include research pertaining to immigrants and refugees from Korea, Iraq, Ethiopia, Vietnam, and Nicaragua. Reasons for classifying the research as intranational are provided. Issues pertaining to the conduct and utilization of intranational research are discussed, including experimental group equivalence, attrition, psychometrics, field research, group and individual interviewing, response bias, reporting of limitations, hypothesis testing, validity, and the incorporation of qualitative research in quantitative studies.Less

Ethical Considerations in Death Penalty Assessments

David DeMatteo, Daniel C. Murrie, Natalie M. Anumba, and Michael E. Keesler

in Forensic Mental Health Assessments in Death Penalty Cases

This chapter provides an ethical context for forensic mental health professionals in death penalty cases. It discusses the ethical codes applicable to psychologists and psychiatrists, both generally ... More

This chapter provides an ethical context for forensic mental health professionals in death penalty cases. It discusses the ethical codes applicable to psychologists and psychiatrists, both generally and in the specific contexts of forensic mental health assessments, including the “Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct,” “Specialty Guidelines for Forensic Psychologists,” “The Principles of Medical Ethics,” “The Principles of Medical Ethics with Annotations Especially Applicable to Psychiatry,” and “Ethics Guidelines for the Practice of Forensic Psychiatry.” This chapter also examines several key ethical considerations relevant to forensic mental health assessments conducted in capital contexts, including boundaries of competence, do no harm, informed consent, psychometric considerations, cultural fairness, and malingering.Less

The Quantitative Assessment of Neighborhood Social Environments

Stephen W. Raudenbush

in Neighborhoods and Health

As interest in the social sciences and public health increasingly turns to the integration of individual, family, and neighborhood processes, a potential mismatch arises in the quality of measures. ... More

As interest in the social sciences and public health increasingly turns to the integration of individual, family, and neighborhood processes, a potential mismatch arises in the quality of measures. Standing behind individual measurement are decades of research, producing measures that often have excellent statistical properties. In contrast, much less is known about measures of ecological settings such as neighborhoods, and the methodology needed to evaluate these measures is in its infancy. This chapter aims to adapt tools from psychometrics to improve the quality of ecometric measures. An extension to the approach sketched in the chapter would take into account spatial autocorrelation. Neighborhood clusters have been treated as independent. Ongoing work will build spatial associations into the models presented here.Less

The Theoretical and Technical Foundations of Health Measurement

Ian McDowell

in Measuring Health: A guide to rating scales and questionnaires

This chapter introduces the field of health measurement, tracing its historical evolution and describing its foundations in psychophysics, psychometrics, and econometrics. It reviews technical ... More

This chapter introduces the field of health measurement, tracing its historical evolution and describing its foundations in psychophysics, psychometrics, and econometrics. It reviews technical approaches to testing the validity and reliability of a measurement instrument.Less

Assessing Early Childhood Development

Marc H. Bornstein and Jennifer E. Lansford

in Handbook of Early Childhood Development Research and Its Impact on Global Policy

Policymakers and practitioners use assessments of early childhood development (ECD) to guide decisions regarding allocation of resources, interventions for children, and national policies. It is ... More

Policymakers and practitioners use assessments of early childhood development (ECD) to guide decisions regarding allocation of resources, interventions for children, and national policies. It is therefore important to measure ECD in rigorous and methodologically sound ways. This chapter addresses issues related to ethics, research design, psychometrics, comparison across countries or cultures, measurement equivalence, and other technical points germane to ECD assessment. It provides illustrations to demonstrate these issues in the case of specific ECD indicators. The chapter concludes by recommending that ECD assessments should be obtained with care, to ensure the protection of children’s rights; appropriately linked to the purpose of the assessment; valid and reliable; adapted from existing measures, with careful attention paid to making the measures culturally appropriate or developed anew using principles of sound test construction; and easy to obtain and use in low-resource settings. Rigorous ECD assessments are valuable to promote children’s well-being worldwide.Less

Methods to Evaluate Competency and Enhance Quality Assurance Internationally and Across Professions

Sandra Greenberg and I. Leon Smith

in Global Promise: Quality Assurance and Accountability in Professional Psychology

Various professions have created models with the theory in mind that the assessment of professional competency will enhance the quality assurance and conduct of professional practice. The ... More

Various professions have created models with the theory in mind that the assessment of professional competency will enhance the quality assurance and conduct of professional practice. The effectiveness and implications of those models' professional competence whether as developmental, impermanent, or content specific are assessed in the field of psychometrics. Key factors include validity, feasibility, fidelity, and the specified use of the assessment itself. The Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards (ASPPB), founded in 1961, functions as a licensure/registration assessment—the Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology (EPPP), whereas the works of International Test Commission provide a functional structure for developing and interpreting for use within and across nations. Methodological quantitative and qualitative examinations in other professions in assessing their competencies are cultural; its complexity derived by differences in recognition of functional and rudimentary competencies, in interaction of scope and practice in regions across the world, and in basic attitudes towards assessment.Less

Measuring the Intelligence of Everything

José Hernández-Orallo and Adolfo Plasencia

in Is the Universe a Hologram?: Scientists Answer the Most Provocative Questions

In this dialogue comprising seven widely diverse sections, José Hernández-Orallo, specialist in AI, reflects on a variety of topics surrounding Natural Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence (AI): ... More

In this dialogue comprising seven widely diverse sections, José Hernández-Orallo, specialist in AI, reflects on a variety of topics surrounding Natural Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence (AI): 1. On what is measurable in intelligence, and what its ingredients are; 2. On how to universally measure intelligence; 3. On the Turing test; 4. On compared intelligences and the IQ (Intelligence Quotient); 5. On the AI agents of software; 6. On whether the human condition, (and happiness), can be mathematized; 7. On the relationship between intelligence and humor; and, 8. Are there universal ingredients in what we call intelligence? Toward the end, he talks about the current science and technology debate on whether the evolution of AI and its latest most disturbing incarnations (e.g., lethal autonomous weapons) can become an existential threat for humans or not. His reflections are culminated with arguments concerning a real danger— that someone, or something, might modify the present natural distribution of intelligence in the planet, which could end up being controlled by a global oligopoly.Less

Processes: Algorithmic Personality: The Informatics of Psychological Traits, 1917–1937

Colin Koopman

in How We Became Our Data: A Genealogy of the Informational Person

The central argument of How We Became Our Data is that for the past one hundred years we have been organized by a politics of data within which control is exerted by the many formats of our ... More

The central argument of How We Became Our Data is that for the past one hundred years we have been organized by a politics of data within which control is exerted by the many formats of our information. Over the past century we have become informational persons whose lives are increasingly conducted through an information politics. This chapter traces personality metrics amid an episode in the stabilization of a prestigious subfield in scientific psychology, namely personality psychology. In 1917, Robert Sessions Woodworth of Columbia University produced for the U.S. Army the first personality test in the history of psychology. Personality testing, rating, and assessment soon took off and could be considered a consolidated field by 1937, when Gordon Allport of Harvard University produced the first academic textbook on the subject of personality psychology. This chapter builds on work in the history of psychology by genealogists including Nikolas Rose, Arnold Davidson, and Michel Foucault. In doing so, it offers a unique angle of attention to the underlying algorithms by which personality psychology achieved scientific success. The result is an account of the informational conditions still central to contemporary conceptions of mind, behavior, achievement, and ability.Less

Introduction

Brian E. Perron and David F. Gillespie

in Key Concepts in Measurement

Measurement refers generally to the process of assigning a numeric value to, or ordering characteristics or traits of, entities under study so, ideally, the labels accurately represent the ... More

Measurement refers generally to the process of assigning a numeric value to, or ordering characteristics or traits of, entities under study so, ideally, the labels accurately represent the characteristic measured. This introductory chapter discussed this definition of measurement and its relevance to social work research and everyday life. This background information is essential to understanding the major content areas of the book. Following this discussion the reader is a brief review of terminology used throughout the book, the authors' philosophical and theoretical orientations, and the relevance of measurement to qualitative research.Less

Psychometrics and Psychological Tests

Steven J. Osterlind

in The Error of Truth: How History and Mathematics Came Together to Form Our Character and Shape Our Worldview

This chapter is devoted to describing the notables of psychometrics and psychological testing and how their efforts contributed to quantification. By this point, quantification is decidedly moving ... More

This chapter is devoted to describing the notables of psychometrics and psychological testing and how their efforts contributed to quantification. By this point, quantification is decidedly moving into realms of psychology and sociology. This chapter focuses on the largest evidence for this: educational testing and psychological testing. It addresses the very personal nature of such tests, and cites many kinds of such test, including in the cognitive behavioral and psychomotor domains. A very brief introduction to reliability and validity is given, with a focus on psychometric analyses. Most of the chapter is devoted to describing the contributions of four individuals who were instrumental to founding modern testing: Francis Galton, Wilhelm Wundt, James McKeen Cattell, and Alfred Binet.Less

Artificial Intelligence and the Rise of the Meritocracy

Michael Trask

in Ideal Minds: Raising Consciousness in the Antisocial Seventies

This chapter discusses how IQ reappeared in the era as a proper measure of personhood. Numerous figures looked to psychometrics as confirming the objective existence of separate subjectivities. ... More

This chapter discusses how IQ reappeared in the era as a proper measure of personhood. Numerous figures looked to psychometrics as confirming the objective existence of separate subjectivities. Examining the promise and defeat of artificial intelligence in philosophy of mind and New Wave science fiction, the chapter shows that a suspicion of Great Society welfarism took hold among writers with little in common except their commitment to the idea that human minds could neither be replicated by machines nor reconfigured by state institutions without injury to personhood. If there is something weird about reviving not just classical IQ science but also classical liberalism, at least one can trace the motivation for such retrievals to the widespread seventies attitude that the present itself had little to offer by way of solutions to social problems. Many forward-thinking or progressive figures in the decade preferred to look to the past, a habit of mind that hastened the collapse of the present.Less

The Remarkable Story

Steven J. Osterlind

in The Error of Truth: How History and Mathematics Came Together to Form Our Character and Shape Our Worldview

This chapter introduces the extraordinary story of “quantification,” the perception of seeing things—both the everyday and the extraordinary—through the lens of quantifiable events (i.e., via odds, ... More

This chapter introduces the extraordinary story of “quantification,” the perception of seeing things—both the everyday and the extraordinary—through the lens of quantifiable events (i.e., via odds, probability, and likelihood). This concept arose when people learned how to measure uncertainty, through the development of probability theory. The chapter presents many examples of using probability for measuring uncertainty and sets the historical context for the following chapters by showing how the idea of quantification developed during a relatively brief period in history, roughly from the end of Napoleonic era through the start of World War I. This era saw a torrent of mathematical developments, specifically, the invention of probability theory, the bell curve, regressions, Bayesian conditional probabilities, and psychometrics. The chapter also explains that this book is not a history of probability theory but a story of how history and mathematics came together to fashion the current worldview.Less

The Wizard of Oil: Abraham James, the Harmonial Wells, and the Psychometric History of the Oil Industry

Rochelle Raineri Zuck

in Oil Culture

This chapter examines how early publicity appropriated spiritualist themes to legitimize the fledgling oil industry by focusing on the exploits of the medium-turned-oilman Abraham James. It shows ... More

This chapter examines how early publicity appropriated spiritualist themes to legitimize the fledgling oil industry by focusing on the exploits of the medium-turned-oilman Abraham James. It shows that American spiritualism and the oil industry had more in common than just temporal and geographic proximity; they were both invested in a belief in the unseen, whether in the form of deceased loved ones or underground oil reserves. Drawing on biographical accounts of James and accounts of his work in Chicago (1863–1864) and Pleasantville, Pennsylvania (1866–1868), it considers how spiritualism shaped and was shaped by nineteenth-century oil culture. James and his Harmonial wells remind us of the practical applications of spiritualism and the psychometrics of the oil industry and force us to rethink widely held distinctions between the spiritual and scientific.Less

Fundamental Measurement, Sensation Differences, and the British Controversy on Psychological Measurement, 1910–1940

Ivan Moscati

in Measuring Utility: From the Marginal Revolution to Behavioral Economics

Like chapter 1, chapter 4 broadens the narrative beyond utility measurement and reconstructs the discussions of measurement that took place in physics, philosophy, and psychology between 1910 and ... More

Like chapter 1, chapter 4 broadens the narrative beyond utility measurement and reconstructs the discussions of measurement that took place in physics, philosophy, and psychology between 1910 and 1940. In physics and philosophy, the most influential discussion of measurement was presented in 1920 by Cambridge physicist Norman Robert Campbell. Campbell articulated a theory of fundamental and derived measurement that ultimately maintained the identification of measurement with unit-based measurement. In the 1920s, psychologists such as William Brown and Godfrey Thomson in England and Louis Leon Thurstone in the United States argued that some of their quantification techniques were capable of delivering unit-based measurement of sensations. Physicists denied this, and the resulting clash of views generated a controversy that engaged British physicists and psychologists from 1932 to 1940. The controversy ended in deadlock, with physicists and psychologists unable to find agreement on the meaning and the conditions of measurement.Less

Optimizing Differences Between Groups Is Important: Examples from Applied Settings

Paul D. Bliese, Eliza W. Wicher, and Dhuha Abdulsalam

in Employee Surveys and Sensing: Challenges and Opportunities

Firms rely on aggregate responses from engagement survey data in order to differentiate between teams of direct reports under specific managers, divisions, business units, etc. In this chapter, the ... More

Firms rely on aggregate responses from engagement survey data in order to differentiate between teams of direct reports under specific managers, divisions, business units, etc. In this chapter, the authors show that items vary with respect to being able to differentiate groups and provide concrete and practical information relevant to selecting items used in engagement surveys. Specifically, the authors show how item-level intraclass correlation coefficient type 1 (ICC[1]) values can provide useful information to optimize group differentiation beyond traditional psychometrics. Using multiple examples from applied settings, they provide insights regarding interpreting ICC(1) values, wording of survey items, stability of ICC(1) values, and the difference between ICC(1) values and traditional psychometric values.Less