What is it about?

Psychometrics is claimed to enable science-based quantifications of the human mind. This article shows that these claims are based on ambiguous meanings of key terms used in psychology that, moreover, are often confused with one another. It also highlights fundamental differences to measurement in the physical sciences and its key concepts. These are masked by frequent misconceptions about physical measurement in psychology. In addition, the epistemological foundations of psychometrics are elaborated only insufficiently elaborated and involve erroneous assumptions about analogies to measurement.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

The analyses show that psychometrics does not establish systematic relations to individuals’ minds as needed for measurement and that, consequently, psychometric results should not be used to make decisions about persons.

Perspectives

This provocative article is aimed at stimulating much needed debate and discussion about established research practices in psychology and the widespread but erroneous beliefs that psychometrics could be similar to measurement.

Dr Jana Uher
University of Greenwich

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: Psychometrics is not measurement: Unraveling a fundamental misconception in quantitative psychology and the complex network of its underlying fallacies., Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, February 2021, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/teo0000176.
You can read the full text:

Read

Resources

Contributors

The following have contributed to this page