Measures

Measures

We have seen in Chapters 1 and 2 that the basis of science is empirical measurement of relevant variables. Formally, measurement refers to the assignment of numbers to objects or events according to specific rules (Coombs, 1964). We assign numbers to events in everyday life, for instance, when we rate a movie as a “nine out of ten” or when a hotel is rated “three star.” As in everyday life, measurement is possible in science because we can use numbers to represent the variables we are interested in studying. In this chapter and the next, we will discuss how behavioral scientists decide what to measure, the techniques they use to measure, and how they determine whether these measures are effective.