Measurement for the Social Sciences The C-OAR-SE Method and Why It M
This book proposes a revolutionary new theory of construct measurement – called C-OAR-SE – for the social sciences. The acronym is derived from the following key elements: construct definition; object representation; attribute classification; rater entity
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John R. Rossiter
Measurement for the Social Sciences The C-OAR-SE Method and Why It Must Replace Psychometrics
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John R. Rossiter Institute for Innovation in Business and Social Research University of Wollongong Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia [email protected]
ISBN 978-1-4419-7157-9 e-ISBN 978-1-4419-7158-6 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-7158-6 Springer New York Dordrecht Heidelberg London Library of Congress Control Number: 2010938285 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011 All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
I dedicate this book to the memories of James Lumsden, who taught me behavioral learning theory and psychometrics theory, and who taught me above all to be skeptical of anything in science that’s too popular; my Father, who was my role model as an academic and my ideal, which I never lived up to, as a good man; and my Mother, who half-looked the other way while I learned and lived the qualitative truths of life. Also, to my two wonderful sons, B.J. and Stewart, who gave their Dad intellectual and moral support in this endeavor. Less direct dedications are to history’s lone iconoclasts, especially Socrates, Voltaire, Nietzsche, Herman Hesse, Joyce, E.L. Doctorow, Bertrand Russell, Ayn Rand, Magritte, more recently the extraordinary Björk, and––a persistent thought as I write this book––to Jesus, who despaired about “Ye of little faith” (Matthew 8: 26) but held to his own. Gadzooked I feel indeed, but I will rise again to rule via this book.
Preface
C-OAR-SE rocks. ––Alan G. Sawyer (a realist) [A]nd in many Cases one with amazement hears the Arguings, and is astonish’d at the Obstinacy of a worthy Man, who yields not to the Evidence of Reason, though laid before him as clear as Day-light. ––John Locke (1690), An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book II, Chapter XXXIII, para. 2.
Social scientist and would-be social scientists of all persuasions: this is the most important book you will ever read. I make this claim because social science knowledge is dependent––entirely––on valid measurement, and that is what we have lacked up until C-OAR-SE. C-OAR-SE is my rational-realist measurement theory that I hope will drive out and replace psychometrics. It is an acronym for the essential aspects of the theory, which are Co
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