The Importance of Common Metrics for Advancing Social Science Theory and Research A Workshop Summary (2011) / Chapter Skim
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1 Introduction
1 Introduction
Pages 1-6
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He posed the thesis that one reason the social sciences have greater difficulty, relative to other sciences, in advancing theory is because they have less commonality among their metrics. WORKSHOP GOALS AND ISSUES The Workshop on Advancing Social Science Theory: The Importance of Common Metrics had three goals: 1.
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Just as a common language facilitates learning and communication of knowledge for many purposes, so do common metrics facilitate cumulative and comparative research and its dissemination for policy, practice, and common understanding. However, the importance attached to common metrics varies tremendously across the behavioral and social sciences.
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Improvements in theory may come from greater interactions among the social sciences, as well as between these disciplines and others, with a movement toward greater interdisciplinary research. Agreeing on the type of data to collect could be another way of promoting common metrics.
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And even if change is warranted, changing a well-established measure may be difficult, if not impossible. Although the exploration of common metrics is to be encouraged, the meeting did sound a cautionary note on the prospects for useful and valid common metrics in the social sciences and the dangers of using imperfect or incomplete standardized measures to guide policy.
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Chapter 2 begins with an overview of measurement in the social sciences, followed by presentations on the challenges involved in developing common metrics and lessons from the economic sciences and the health sciences. These presentations provided a sampling of past experience with common measurements in both the policy domains and in terms of research on some of the core concepts in a diversity of social science fields.
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Examples are drawn from a number of constructs -- including poverty, intergenerational mobility, and self-regulation -- that highlight the obstacles to development of common metrics in the social sciences. Chapter 5 summarizes the final discussion session of the 2-day event.
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