Page 42 - 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

30 THE IMPORTANCE OF COMMON METRICS

Retirement Study (HRS), as it has generated comparable studies throughout
Europe and Asia. He elaborated that in comparisons of indicators from
more than one country, it is important that observed differences be at-
tributable to actual differences in behavior of the people in those countries
and not to differences in measurement. Hauser added occupation-based
measures of social class as a positive example of harmonization, for which
it is relatively easy to obtain all the information needed to produce several
different measures in a single survey operation. Willis pointed to the cross-
fertilization of ideas across surveys as key to driving innovation in the HRS.
He favored keeping studies like it as live scientific enterprises, drawing
mutual inspiration from other studies.
Bohrnstedt agreed that harmonization is one way to think about com-
mon metrics, but he did not want to neglect the fact that more effort should
go into improving measurement, that is, trying to understand some latent
construct and how it should best be represented.

Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.