Is it possible to measure psychological attributes like intelligence, personality and attitudes and if so, how does that work? What does the term 'measurement' mean in a psychological context? This fascinating and timely book discusses these questions and investigates the possible answers that can be given response. Denny Borsboom provides an in-depth treatment of the philosophical foundations of widely used measurement models in psychology. The theoretical status of classical test theory, latent variable theory and positioned in terms of the underlying philosophy of science. Special attention is devoted to the central concept of test validity and future directions to improve the theory and practice of psychological measurement are outlined.

The central claim of Measuring the Mind is that, contrary to popular opinion, the psychologists who dominated educational policy-making between the wars were educational progressives and political radicals. They argued that education should reflect the requirements of children rather than the convenience of adults, and regarded intelligence testing as an instrument of child-centred education. These psychologists owed their political inspiration to the meritocratic ideal and lost popularity with the waning of this ideal after the war. Four main themes dominate the discussion: the emergence of educational psychology as a distinct discipline; the recent history of ideas about children's mental development; the role of experts in formulating educational policy; and the rise and fall of the measurement of merit.

This book explores intelligence testing in the US through the career of Henry Herbert Goddard.

In Measuring the Immeasurable Mind: Where Contemporary Neuroscience Meets the Aristotelian Tradition, Matthew Owen argues that despite its nonphysical character, it is possible to empirically detect and measure consciousness. Toward the end of the previous century, the neuroscience of consciousness set its roots and sprouted within a materialist milieu that reduced the mind to matter. Several decades later, dualism is being dusted off and reconsidered. Although some may see this revival as a threat to consciousness science aimed at measuring the conscious mind, Owen argues that measuring consciousness, along with the medical benefits of such measurements, is not ruled out by consciousness being nonphysical. Owen proposes the Mind-Body Powers model of neural correlates of consciousness, which is informed by Aristotelian causation and a substance dualist view of human nature inspired by Thomas Aquinas, who often followed Aristotle. In addition to explaining why there are neural correlates of consciousness, the model provides a philosophical foundation for empirically discerning and quantifying consciousness. En route to presenting and applying the Mind-Body Powers model to neurobiology, Owen rebuts longstanding objections to dualism related to the mind-body problem. With scholarly precision and readable clarity, Owen applies an oft forgotten yet richly developed historical vantage point to contemporary cognitive neuroscience.

Are psychometric tests valid for a new reality of artificial intelligence systems, technology-enhanced humans, and hybrids yet to come? Are the Turing Test, the ubiquitous CAPTCHAs, and the various animal cognition tests the best alternatives? In this fascinating and provocative book, José Hernández-Orallo formulates major scientific questions, integrates the most significant research developments, and offers a vision of the universal evaluation of cognition. By replacing the dominant anthropocentric stance with a universal perspective where living organisms are considered as a special case, long-standing questions in the evaluation of behavior can be addressed in a wider landscape. Can we derive task difficulty intrinsically? Is a universal g factor - a common general component for all abilities - theoretically possible? Using algorithmic information theory as a foundation, the book elaborates on the evaluation of perceptual, developmental, social, verbal and collective features and critically analyzes what the future of intelligence might look like.

The new edition of this popular textbook provides a comprehensive, accessible introduction to public opinion in the United States and describes how public opinion data are collected, how they are used, and the role they play in the U.S. political system. Bardes and Oldendick introduce students to the history of polling and explain the factors a good consumer of polls should know in order to evaluate public opinion data. Public Opinion: Measuring the American Mind is the only text to devote significant space to the history.

In this book Steve Morlidge shows how the traditional methods of performance reporting fail, and what we need to do differently to help us make sense of our dynamic, complex and data rich world and to effectively communicate these insights to an audience of decision makers. It argues that organisations cannot be managed as if they were a simple mechanical system operating in a predictable environment. And that the variance analyses and data tables typically used to measure and communicate performance are completely inadequate. Performance reporting should not be a routine, mechanistic process. It should be treated as an act of perception performed to help the organization to assess whether and where intervention is needed to improve its performance, informed by the successful strategies used by the brain to make sense of its own super abundant sensory inputs. In order to make sense of the vast amounts of data available to organizations and to communicate the meaning effectively to decision makers, we need to learn to use approaches that exploit the strengths of our own brains and compensate for its weaknesses. From this provocative yet practical book, readers will learn: · About what the latest insights of cognitive science tell us about how to derive meaning from potentially overwhelmingly large data sets. · Why it is important to bring a dynamic perspective into performance reporting, and how it can be done. · To use simple tools that help isolate the signal in noise infected data and to make sound inferences. · The intelligent way to use goals to guide and assess performance. · The grammar of data visualization and how it can be used to design powerful ‘brain friendly’ reports. The ultimate aim of information professionals should be to create the shared consciousness that enables their organizations to quickly respond and adapt to their environments