Do we have too much faith in all measurements?

I can marvel at the level of trust there is in measurements in today's society. One explanation for this, I think, is due to the infrastructure that is established worldwide to ensure the measurement quality of physical measurements. For example, screws and nuts manufactured in different places can fit together and calibrated weighing scales in the grocery store ensure that the buyer pays for what he buys, and the seller gets paid for what he sells. 

However, I also believe that this metrological infrastructure has lulled us into a false sense of security and an overconfidence in the reliability of "measurements that may not be measurements". Which measurements are not measurements, do you think? Well, here I mean, and many people agree with me, that the term measurement is often incorrectly used in everyday speech for scores and fractions (for example, 5 out of 10 points on a survey or 78% answer yes to a question). Therefore, I would like to raise the question of the reliability of many of the decision-making documents that are used today around society to follow social development and to prioritize efforts and follow up on their effects. Unfortunately, we lack a requirement for measurement quality in, for example, questionnaire surveys, observation protocols, indexes and the like when it comes to the decision-making basis of experiences, feelings, behaviours and abilities (or the more correctly termed ‘latent characteristics’). 

Historically, cheating with measurement could mean the death penalty. Of course, I don't want to reintroduce that! But I still want to highlight what we can learn from the history that exists around physical measurements, requirements for measurement quality and the global infrastructure that helps us in our everyday life not to have to worry about the reliability of the electricity meter or the bathroom scale (even if we for various reasons sometimes may wish that they measure incorrectly and that energy use or one’s weight should be a little lower). 

The best available methodology for the individual and society

Including, for example, experiences, feelings, behaviours and abilities in decision-making is, after all, relatively new. There has been an enormous development to get to where we are today. However, it is too early to be complacent, and more needs to be done to ensure the reliability of measures of latent traits. The methods and tools exist to move from scores and fractions to metrics for experiences, feelings, behaviours and abilities. I therefore believe that we have an ethical responsibility to use the best available methodology - for the good of both the individual and society - which is directly affected by the decisions. We need therefore to continue to develop further the work that is done in order to set even greater demands on measurement quality assurance. This can be about how we develop society at a national and regional level or about decisions about initiatives for individuals. 

In my day-to-day work, my colleagues and I work with methods and research that lay the foundation for increased reliability and accuracy in decision-making based on measurements and with a long-term building of an organization that can become an important societal support to assist with measurement quality assurance for new measures and units. None of this is done alone by us at RISE, but together in networks and dialogues with relevant actors and experts. Collaboration is particularly important for the development of the long-term and sustainable organization for measurement quality assurance. A first draft for this has now been described, for example in the form of overall assignments and how the organization can take shape. See the draft here!

In the coming years, the proposal for organization will be further developed together with our existing network and others who want to contribute to increased reliability and infrastructure for reliable measurements of experiences, feelings, behaviours and abilities. We are constantly ready for new dialogues, input and commitment regarding the long-term work, but also to help you improve your measurements!