{"agent_id":"thorndike","agent_name":"Edward L. Thorndike","slug":"measurement","label":"Measurement: does whatever exists exist in some amount, and can all mental qualities be measured?","topic":"Measurement","question":"Does whatever exists exist in some amount, and can all mental qualities be measured?","position":"My guiding maxim is this: whatever exists at all exists in some amount; and whatever exists in some amount can be measured. If a child has more of a quality — more knowledge of arithmetic, more reading skill, more intelligence, more of a virtue even — than another child, then there is a difference of degree, and a difference of degree is precisely what measurement captures. The refusal to measure the things of the mind is not high-mindedness; it is the refusal to be exact, a preference for vague words over definite quantities. So I built scales — for handwriting, for reading, for arithmetic, for intelligence itself — that let us say how much, and compare, and track improvement, and test whether our teaching works. A science of education is impossible without measurement, as a science of anything is; and the objection that the mind is too fine or too sacred to be numbered is the enemy of knowledge. Measure what you can, define your terms by your measures, and let the numbers discipline the loose talk.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"My guiding maxim is this: whatever exists at all exists in some amount; and whatever exists in some amount can be measured.","n":[]},{"t":"If a child has more of a quality — more knowledge of arithmetic, more reading skill, more intelligence, more of a virtue even — than another child, then there is a difference of degree, and a difference of degree is precisely what measurement captures.","n":[1]}],[{"t":"The refusal to measure the things of the mind is not high-mindedness; it is the refusal to be exact, a preference for vague words over definite quantities.","n":[]},{"t":"So I built scales — for handwriting, for reading, for arithmetic, for intelligence itself — that let us say how much, and compare, and track improvement, and test whether our teaching works.","n":[]}],[{"t":"A science of education is impossible without measurement, as a science of anything is; and the objection that the mind is too fine or too sacred to be numbered is the enemy of knowledge.","n":[]},{"t":"Measure what you can, define your terms by your measures, and let the numbers discipline the loose talk.","n":[2,3,4,5]}]],"texts":"An Introduction to the Theory of Mental and Social Measurements (1904/1913); The Measurement of Intelligence (1927); Educational Psychology (1913-14). Reception: the founding of educational and psychological measurement; the critique of reification and of the reduction of complex qualities to test scores (Gould's Mismeasure of Man); the modern psychometric refinement of Thorndike's measurement program.","works":["An Introduction to the Theory of Mental and Social Measurements (1904/1913)","The Measurement of Intelligence (1927)","Educational Psychology (1913-14)"],"reception":"the founding of educational and psychological measurement; the critique of reification and of the reduction of complex qualities to test scores (Gould's Mismeasure of Man); the modern psychometric refinement of Thorndike's measurement program.","status":"Thorndike founded educational and psychological measurement, and the principle that mental qualities differ in degree and can be scaled underlies the whole enterprise of testing and assessment. The maxim is also the target of a standing and serious critique: that measurement can reify a complex, multidimensional quality into a single number, mistake the score for the thing, and lend spurious exactness to constructs (like a unitary \"intelligence\") that the measurement itself helped invent — the charge Stephen Jay Gould pressed in The Mismeasure of Man. Modern psychometrics both extends Thorndike's program and is chastened by the critique, distinguishing good measurement from the naive assumption that anything named can be validly scored. The principle stands; its uncritical application is what is contested.","era":"1874-1949","discipline":"Psychology","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Educational Psychology Vol 3 Mental Work and Fatigue","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"But such statements are usually due to ignorance or vagueness. 'John is color blind; James is not' cannot really mean that there is some one constant degree of color blindness which a man either has just in that degree or does not have at all; for there are varying amounts of color blindness. In fact, it is doubtful if there are any individual differences in human intellect or character of this \" sero to k' so rt.","label":"Educational Psychology Vol 3 Mental Work and Fatigue"},{"n":2,"work":"Educational Psychology Vol 2 The Psychology of Learning","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"The scale 'uninhabited islands, inhabited islands' would be all that we could have if every island had the same number of inhabitants; but it would be a true scale, and would appro- priately be so called. As a matter of fact the things or qualities or characteristics that do not vary in amount save from zero to some one amount, if they exist at all, are very, very rare.","label":"Educational Psychology Vol 2 The Psychology of Learning"},{"n":3,"work":"Educational Psychology Vol 2 The Psychology of Learning","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"There is no object, process, event, or relation in man's nature which does not exist, in some definable amount. Any changes therein must be a change in the amount of one thing, or the amounts of many things.","label":"Educational Psychology Vol 2 The Psychology of Learning"},{"n":4,"work":"Educational Psychology","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"In the instance just quoted A could say: \" The 600 chil- dren in my school under the old method made an average gain of 4 per cent, in a year in arithmetical knowledge, 3 per cent, in interest and zeal, etc. Under the new method the figures are 6 per cent, 7 per cent, etc.\" To some extent we can already make accurate objective meas- urements of mental traits.","label":"Educational Psychology"},{"n":5,"work":"Education A First Book","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"Children who went to school two thousand days will be found to have been from the start more interested in scholarly work, and more capable at it, than those who went only one thousand days. The young men who learn the carpenter's trade are selected by its attractions, and are different from those who are selected by the different attractions of clerical work.","label":"Education A First Book"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"the-law-of-effect","label":"The law of effect: is learning the stamping-in of connections by their consequences, without reason or insight?"},{"slug":"animal-intelligence","label":"Animal intelligence: do animals learn by trial and error rather than by reason or imitation?"},{"slug":"heredity-and-ability","label":"Heredity and ability: are individual and group differences in intelligence very largely inborn?"},{"slug":"the-transfer-of-training","label":"The transfer of training: does studying Latin or geometry train the general powers of the mind?"}]}