Page 20 - The Importance of Common Metrics for Advacing Social Science Theory and Research

The Importance of Common Metrics for Advancing Social Science Theory and Research: A Workshop Summary
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/13034.html

8 THE IMPORTANCE OF COMMON METRICS

despite the involvement of scientists from many countries to lend
scientific stature to the use of this measurement system.

Turning to physical measurements more generally, Bohrnstedt described
them as characterized by standards that are based on strong theory and ex-
perimentation. In the physical sciences, theory is often viewed as a necessary
precursor for measurement. With strong theory, measurements can often be
used to confirm, reject, or refine hypotheses. In social science disciplines,
the lack of strong theories is often reflected in the lack of well-accepted
common metrics.

MEASUREMENT STANDARDIZATION IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
According to Bohrnstedt, there are some clear, tangible measures in the
social sciences—such as birth, age, marital status, number of children—but
the picture becomes murkier when one considers such concepts as atti-
tudes, values, and beliefs at the individual or organizational level, or such
concepts as school climate and organizational learning, or societal-level
concepts, such as anomie and social disorganization. In the social sciences,
it is often unclear whether the problem is the theory, the measures, or both.
Bohrnstedt observed that researchers have not yet discovered how to define
the kind of fundamental quantities in the social sciences that exist in the
physical sciences. Social science concepts are large in number, fuzzy, and
do not bear a simple relationship to one another, as is more frequently the
case in the physical sciences. As a result, strong axiomatic theories against
which to evaluate and inform measures are lacking. He cautioned, however,
that it is not clear that social scientists would develop better measures if in
fact strong theories existed.
Bohrnstedt traced the history of social science measurement, beginning
with Pierre Guillaume Frédéric Le Play (1806-1882), who is credited with
establishing what has become the modern-day social survey. He followed
with mention of Guttman scales, popular in the 1950s and 1960s, which
order both items and persons on a scale and are an important precursor to
item response theory (IRT) scaling, developed in the early 1960s primarily
to measure latent ability and achievement; application of psychophysical
work on sensation and perception to attitude and value measurement us-
ing the method of paired comparisons; the scaling of attitude items, which
led to development of the comparative law of judgment; the measurement
of intelligence and the earliest factor analyses; the use of linear composites
in the social sciences; and one-parameter Rasch models and subsequent
two- and three-parameter models. There is increasing interest in IRT ap-
plications for the measurement of social and psychological latent concepts.
One example is the measurement of health-related quality of life using the

Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.