Page 51 - 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
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INDICATORS 39

to disability: a disability rights’ perspective, a public value view, and a fiscal
or bureaucratic viewpoint.
Robert Willis concurred with Pollak that theory is in some sense a sta-
bilizing influence on the nature of the measure. However, he thought the
issue of invariance, an old philosophical and scientific issue, has unclear
implications in an economic and social context.
Robert Hauser contested the analysis provided by Pollak and Mulgan
that assumes the necessity of choosing a criterion with respect to an array of
measures like ADLs. He referred to the Multiple Indicator Multiple Indica-
tor Cause (MIMIC) model presented by George Bohrnstedt, observing that
if the data are benign, a criterion may not have to be chosen.
Bohrnstedt pointed out that such outcomes as nursing home, medical,
and home care costs have been the focus of the discussion. There are also
costs associated with disability status with respect to income or reduced
income, and these factors may all comport with the same metric, which
helps in weighting on the indicator side what is making a difference.
Pollak reiterated that although there are different ways to build a
framework for constructing an index, the main point is to choose one and
to factor in the possibility of biases.

HIGH SCHOOL COMPLETION RATES

In his presentation, John Robert Warren (University of Minnesota) con-
sidered indicators related to the measurement of high school completion.
Because of the important reasons for completing high school (economic,
social, political, personal, and academic), he argued that it is imperative
to develop accurate and meaningful measures of the rate at which people
complete or drop out of high school. While many people assume that it
should be easy to quantify high school dropout or completion rates, Warren
described the confusion associated with the actual estimates. Not only are
there data discrepancies between surveys, but there are also inconsistencies
between the data on high school completion and the data on dropouts. He
outlined three reasons why the widely used measures of high school comple-
tion and dropouts differ so much from one another: (1) different objectives
and purposes, (2) technical differences in measures, and (3) differences in
the accuracy of the data.

Different Objectives
In Warren’s view, the biggest step that could be taken toward clarifying
understanding of high school dropout or completion rates in the United
States is to be consistently clear and forthcoming about why they are mea-
sured in the first place. An important reason why estimates for dropout and

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