ABSTRACT
I tell my students of statistics and measurement that regardless of how objective one may think the measurement is, there is always some degree of subjectivity, perhaps in what to measure and when.
The measurement can be done by instrumentation, by noting performance on a predesigned set of scales, by simply making notes on a notepad or card, or by recall of the maneuver during the postflight debriefing. These methods contain progressively greater degrees of subjectivity. The mechanical instrumentation records performance immediately and with a high degree of accuracy. The instructor’s noting performance on the scales may be fairly accurate, but it is subjective in terms of when the instructor observes the deviations of any particular parameter, and subjective in terms of how much of a deviation the instructor actually notes on the scales. Simply making notes about the performance on a notepad during flight opens the measurement of performance to even more subjectivity. Waiting until after a maneuver or even later, after flight, would be the most subjective means of recording the student’s performance.
