ABSTRACT
For more than half a century we in education, psychology, and the other human sciences have managed to delude ourselves about what measurement actually is. Every day, we rely both explicitly and implicitly on calibrated measurement systems to measure and cut timber, buy lengths of cloth, assemble the correct amounts of ingredients to bake a cake, and to administer appropriate doses of medicine to ailing relatives. So, how is it that when we go to our offices to conduct educational research, undertake some psychological investigation, or implement a standardized survey, we then go about treating and analysing those data as i f the requirements for measurement that existed at home in the morning no longer apply in the afternoon? Why do we change our definition of and standards for measurement when the human condit ion is the focus of our attention?
