Joel Michell

Normal Science, Pathological Science and Psychometrics:

A pathology of science is defined as a two-level breakdown in processes of critical inquiry: first, a hypothesis is accepted without serious attempts being made to test it; and, second, this first-level failure is ignored. Implications of this concept of pathology of science for the Kuhnian concept of normal science are explored. It is then shown that the hypothesis upon which psychometrics stands, the hypothesis that some psychological attributes are quantitative, has never been critically tested. Furthermore, it is shown that psychometrics has avoided investigating this hypothesis through endorsing an anomalous definition of measurement. In this way, the failure to test this key hypothesis is not only ignored but disguised. It is concluded that psychometrics is a pathology of science, and an explanation of this fact is found in the influence of Pythagoreanism upon the development of quantitative psychology.

The Quantitative Imperative: Positivism, Naive Realism and the Place of Qualitative Methods in Psychology

The quantitative imperative is the view that in science, when you cannot measure, you do not really know what you are talking about, but when you can, you do, and, therefore, qualitative methods have no place in psychology. On the basis of this imperative, qualitative research methods are still excluded from mainstream psychology. Where does this view come from? Many qualitative researchers think it is an expression of positivism. Is this attribution correct? Then again, qualitative researchers often confuse positivism with naive realism. What is the relationship between the quantitative imperative and naive realism? In this paper it is shown that in finding opposition, qualitative researchers did not, as they sometimes allege, come up against the hard, positivistic edge of science. They encountered something at once much more deep-seated than positivism but also something much less hardheaded than they suppose positivism to have been. Indeed, perhaps surprisingly, positivism is no barrier to qualitative methods. As for naive realism, it provides a firm foundation for qualitative methods in psychology. It is argued that in psychology, the quantitative imperative is an egregious, potentially self-perpetuating form of methodological error.

Is Psychometrics Pathological Science

Pathology of science occurs when the normal processes of scientific investigation break down and a hypothesis is accepted as true within the mainstream of a discipline without a serious attempt being made to test it and without any recognition that this is happening. It is argued that this has happened in psychometrics: The hypothesis upon which it is premised, that psychological attributes are quantitative, is accepted within the mainstream, and not only do psychometricians fail to acknowledge this, but they hardly recognize the existence of this hypothesis at all. It is suggested that certain social interests, identifiable within the history of modern psychology, have produced this situation because of the ideological and economic secondary gains derived from presenting psychology as a quantitative science. The question of whether modern item response models are exempt from this critique is considered, and it is concluded that they have not yet faced up to the challenges of seriously testing the relevant hypothesis or even bothered to recognize its existence.

The place of qualitative research in psychology

The application of qualitative methods in psychological research is often located within the context of nontraditional philosophical frameworks rather than traditional, realist approaches to science. In so far as traditional philosophical approaches have been understood within psychology as favouring quantitative methods, this strategy has proved useful. However, in so far as those promoting qualitative methods would like to see instruction in their use enter the mainstream methodological curriculum, this strategy may well be self-defeating. A different approach is to explore the question of whether qualitative methods have a place under the traditional philosophical view. In this paper it is argued that they do. Indeed, I argue that the fixation upon quantitative methods that characterizes modern psychology really has no justification given the realist understanding of science. This fixation, it is argued, is a result of historical influences quite different to philosophical realism. Attempts to understand meaning and psychological phenomena related to it from a realist perspective entails that qualitative methods have a secure place within modern psychology understood from a scientific point of view.

Item Response Models, Pathological Science and the Shape of Error: Reply to Borsboom and Mellenbergh

There is nothing in Borsboom and Mellenbergh’s (2004) response that refutes my thesis that psychometrics is a pathology of science. They seek to defend item response models from my charge of pathological science without apparently realizing that my charge relates to psychometricians, not to models. They appeal to the Quine-Duhem thesis in an attempt to argue that item response models do not allow the hypothesis that psychological attributes are quantitative to be tested in isolation, but their argument is based upon a misinterpretation of Duhem. In any experiment, what is being tested depends on what the experimenter already takes to be true, and it is possible that a psychometrician could be testing just one of the hypotheses constituting an item response model. Furthermore, using the theory of conjoint measurement, it is possible to isolate predictions that depend upon psychological attributes being quantitative, as opposed to merely ordinal. Despite this, Borsboom and Mellenbergh agree with the first part of my thesis. They do not discuss the second part, but an examination of textbooks on item response models shows that psychometricians disguise their failure to test the hypothesis that psychological attributes are quantitative by simply declining to mention that this hypothesis is presumed in their models. Claims to measure psychological attributes based upon these models depend exclusively upon the weakest part of these models: the hypothesis that the distribution of ‘errors’ takes a specific form.

Maze's direct realism and the character of cognition

An exposition and critique of J. R. Mazes (1983) treatment of cognition forms the basis for arguments against the representative (or information processing) paradigm and an exposition of the alternative, direct realist, view. Against the representative view, it is argued that cognitive representations cannot really represent anything and that, consequently, the information processing paradigm is logically incoherent. A number of facets of direct realism are considered in detail, especially Mazes revival of the suggestion that cognition is observable in behaviour, his views about how we know our own cognitions, and the place of cognition in the explanation of behaviour. Furthermore, a possible account of non-veridical cognition is presented to counter the suggestion that error is a logically insurmountable problem for direct realism. Finally, some of the implications of direct realism for cognitive research are derived.

Qualitative research meets the ghost of Pythagoras

The issue of qualitative versus quantitative methods is rooted first and foremost in the character of the phenomena investigated and not in an investigator’s methodological preferences. If the phenomenon under investigation is non-quantitative, then it cannot be studied successfully by attempting to use quantitative methods because trying to impose quantitative concepts upon qualitative phenomena misrepresents them. If the target articles provide any guide, these truths are ignored as much by psychologists wanting to mix quantitative with qualitative methods as by mainstream quantitative researchers. These articles display both the power of the modernist fantasy that measurement is always a discretionary choice of any investigator and the power of the persistent delusion that psychological attributes must be measurable. In psychology, as ever, the ghost of Pythagoras rules.

Teaching and misteaching measurement in psychology

Abstract “Do not block the way to enquiry.”—Charles Sanders Pierce A feature common to all scientific methods is critical enquiry, that is, testing claims. If the teaching of methods in any scientific discipline fails to exemplify this common feature, then the enterprise of science may be subverted. This could happen, for example, if a hypothesis fundamental to some method were not taught critically or, more seriously, if critical scrutiny of it were to be systematically excluded from the curriculum. It is argued here that this has happened in psychometrics with regard to the claim upon which psychological measurement depends, namely, that psychological attributes (e.g., intellectual abilities, personality traits, and social attitudes) are quantitative. It is further argued that this has happened because of historical and social pressures within the discipline. Suggestions are made for additions to the measurement curriculum.

Numbers as Quantitative Relations and the Traditional Theory of Measurement

The thesis that numbers are ratios of quantities has recently been advanced by a number of philosophers. While adequate as a definition of the natural numbers, it is not clear that this view suffices for our understanding of the reals. These require continuous quantity and relative to any such quantity an infinite number of additive relations exist. Hence, for any two magnitudes of a continuous quantity there exists no unique ratio. This problem is overcome by defining ratios, and hence real numbers, as binary relations between infinite standard sequences. This definition leads smoothly into a new definition of measurement consonant with the traditional view of measurement as the discovery or estimation of numerical relations. The traditional view is further strengthened by allowing that the additive relations internal to a quantity are distinct from relations observed in the behaviour of objects manifesting quantities. In this way the traditional theory can accommodate the theory of conjoint measurement. This is worth doing because the traditional theory has one great strength lacked by its rivals: measurement statements and quantitative laws are able to be understood literally.

The origins of the representational theory of measurement: Helmholtz, Hölder, and Russell

Abstract It has become customary to locate the origins of modern measurement theory in the works of Helmholtz (1887) and Holder (1901). If by ‘modern measurement theory’ is meant the representational theory, then this may not be an accurate assessment. Both Helmholtz and Holder present theories of measurement which are closely related to the classical conception of measurement. Indeed, Holder can be interpreted as bringing this conception to fulfilment in a synthesis of Euclid, Newton, and Dedekind. The first explicitly representational theory appears to have been Russells. He rejected the traditional concept of quantity and its connection to number, making the use of number in quantitative science problematical. He solved the problem via representationalism.