Measurement as Structural Theory

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Abstract
Definitions are of course arbitrary. Following Lewis Carroll, one can make words mean what one wishes [cf. Gardner, 1960]. Basically, all that is formally required of a definition is that it be clear: that it enable reliable use of the concept concerned. A more informal, heuristic, desideratum is that it actually influence theorists and researchers to progress in their work.A strategy for attaining reliability is to make a list of related concepts which might be confused with the one intended, and then to define all the concepts simultaneously in one facet framework. Such a mapping helps to make explicit what the target concept has in common with the others, and how it differs from them. This facet strategy has proved to be useful for distinguishing, for example, among varieties of intelligence [Guttman, 1965; Schlesinger and Guttman, 1969], among varieties of attitude [Guttman, 1959; Elizur, 1970; Jordan, 1971], and even between intelligence and attitude [Guttman, in press]. Evidence is accumulating as to the stimulating effect of the approach for the development of new insights and for the discovery of new forms of lawfulness in data.

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