xxvii
Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1
1.1 Why we wrote this book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1
1.1.1 Is measurement necessarily physical? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3
1.2 Some familiar and not-so-familiar contexts for measurement . . . . .
5
1.2.1 A brief introduction to temperature and its measurement . .
6
1.2.2 A brief introduction to reading comprehension ability
and its measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8
1.2.3 An initial view of psychosocial measurement
from a physical science perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.3 The path we will travel in this book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2 Fundamental concepts in measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.2 The abstract structure of measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.2.1 Measurement as an empirical process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.2.2 Measurement as a designed process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.2.3 Measurement as a process whose input is a property
of an object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.2.4 Measurement as a property evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.3 Between the empirical world and the information world . . . . . . . . 35
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3 Technical and cultural contexts for measurement systems . . . . . . . . . 43
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.2 The quality of measurement and its results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.2.1 A sketch of the framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.2.2 The Error Approach (or True Value Approach) . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.2.3 The Uncertainty Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.2.4 Basic components of measurement uncertainty . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.2.5 Measurement uncertainty and measurement results . . . . . . 59
3.3 The operational context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1
1.1 Why we wrote this book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1
1.1.1 Is measurement necessarily physical? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3
1.2 Some familiar and not-so-familiar contexts for measurement . . . . .
5
1.2.1 A brief introduction to temperature and its measurement . .
6
1.2.2 A brief introduction to reading comprehension ability
and its measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8
1.2.3 An initial view of psychosocial measurement
from a physical science perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.3 The path we will travel in this book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2 Fundamental concepts in measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.2 The abstract structure of measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.2.1 Measurement as an empirical process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.2.2 Measurement as a designed process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.2.3 Measurement as a process whose input is a property
of an object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.2.4 Measurement as a property evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.3 Between the empirical world and the information world . . . . . . . . 35
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3 Technical and cultural contexts for measurement systems . . . . . . . . . 43
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.2 The quality of measurement and its results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.2.1 A sketch of the framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.2.2 The Error Approach (or True Value Approach) . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.2.3 The Uncertainty Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.2.4 Basic components of measurement uncertainty . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.2.5 Measurement uncertainty and measurement results . . . . . . 59
3.3 The operational context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61