ABSTRACT
Three important issues are common to both classifying and measuring: first, choosing the dimensions to scale or measure; second, deciding which categories to use in the scales or which type of scale; and third, defining the categories and drawing their boundary lines. This chapter discusses how to classify and measure. The dimensions for the classification scheme should be chosen to fit one’s purpose. Constructing an appropriate classification scheme is not as simple as it seems, and it requires imagination. When constructing a classification scheme, the researcher must be very flexible in accepting new categories and throwing away existing categories. The classification of humans by sex has the useful property that it is easy to designate most human beings as man or woman, though there will be some exceptions who are not easily classifiable. The main difference between classification and measurement is the use of numbers for computational purposes.
