ABSTRACT

This part conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters. The part shows that the scientific method is not an instant recipe for discovering the truth, even in the natural sciences. It demonstrates that psychological measurement is unlike scientific measurement in a number of ways. The scientific method is dependent on the notion of an external reality and on the correspondence theory of truth, both of which have been attacked in much modern philosophy. The scientific method claims that its formulations of the external world are true. However, what is meant by the claim that a statement is true has been the subject of considerable philosophical analysis and dispute. Psychometrists, aware of their problems of measurement, have aimed to construct tests with certain clear characteristics which they regard as the hallmark of scientific measurement.