Rasch Measurement as the
Definition of Scientific Agency

"Science is at its most productive when it defines new agencies that share their life with a scientific community. It is, thus, only the social scientists who put the cart before the horse by discussing the rigor and certainty of a fact, before having defined the new agencies [existing entities with lives of their own: sample- and scale-free variables] under examination. Such methodological rhetoric in anthropology [or in any other field] carries no more meaning than the construction of a highway, six lanes wide and several hundred meters long, located in the middle of nowhere. It would be robust and rigorous, yet where would it lead? What kind of traffic is it designed to carry? These are the questions that take precedence over the actual dimensions of the road."

"Once we have rejected the useless dreams of methodological rigor [disconnected from productive agency], where does anthropology stand if it tries to imitate not the purity of what it imagines in the natural sciences, but the real productivity of those disciplines - embodied in the new agencies they mobilize?"

"There is nothing especially cold or uninvolved in the production of science. On the contrary, experimental scientists are involved, close to their subject matter and passionate. What matters in the production of facts is not the Objective Gaze, but what properties might be maintained in the transformation of information through successive media [i.e., how well does the construct hold up across samples of persons and items?]."

"The more mediations, the better. This is as true for chemistry as for botany, psychology and ethnography. To believe that involvement, transformation, adulteration, reformatting and displacement weaken a Pure Science of Pure Objectivity is to have never seen a practicing scientist at work."

"The slogan, Science is politics pursued by other means, actually helps science because it insists on those other means necessary to build a society."

Latour, B. (1996, March). Not the question. AAA Anthropology Newsletter, 37(3), 1, 5.

Latour's sense of agency is fairly common in anthropology, and in social studies of science. For instance, standards are held to be both agents and products of agreement (Widmalm 1995; Wise 1995). When different labs working with different samples using different brands or configurations of instruments nonetheless converge on a common variable, the objective existence of the variable acts as an agent of standardization and agreement. When scientists and technicians get together to agree on the conventions of numerical units and data quality, the standard is the product of agreement. Latour's remark that, "the more mediations, the better," speaks to the robustness of phenomena that can withstand and even thrive on the transformations through successive media.

William P. Fisher, Jr.

Widmalm, S. (1995, May 12). On exactitude, a review of The Values of Precision, by M. Norton Wise. Science, 268, 905-6.

Wise, M. N. (Ed.). (1995). The values of precision. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Rasch Measurement as the Definition of Scientific Agency. Fisher, W.P. Jr. … Rasch Measurement Transactions, 2000, 14:3 p.761




Rasch Publications
Rasch Measurement Transactions (free, online) Rasch Measurement research papers (free, online) Probabilistic Models for Some Intelligence and Attainment Tests, Georg Rasch Applying the Rasch Model 3rd. Ed., Bond & Fox Best Test Design, Wright & Stone
Rating Scale Analysis, Wright & Masters Introduction to Rasch Measurement, E. Smith & R. Smith Introduction to Many-Facet Rasch Measurement, Thomas Eckes Invariant Measurement: Using Rasch Models in the Social, Behavioral, and Health Sciences, George Engelhard, Jr. Statistical Analyses for Language Testers, Rita Green
Rasch Models: Foundations, Recent Developments, and Applications, Fischer & Molenaar Journal of Applied Measurement Rasch models for measurement, David Andrich Constructing Measures, Mark Wilson Rasch Analysis in the Human Sciences, Boone, Stave, Yale
in Spanish: Análisis de Rasch para todos, Agustín Tristán Mediciones, Posicionamientos y Diagnósticos Competitivos, Juan Ramón Oreja Rodríguez

To be emailed about new material on www.rasch.org
please enter your email address here:

I want to Subscribe: & click below
I want to Unsubscribe: & click below

Please set your SPAM filter to accept emails from Rasch.org

www.rasch.org welcomes your comments:

Your email address (if you want us to reply):

 

ForumRasch Measurement Forum to discuss any Rasch-related topic

Go to Top of Page
Go to index of all Rasch Measurement Transactions
AERA members: Join the Rasch Measurement SIG and receive the printed version of RMT
Some back issues of RMT are available as bound volumes
Subscribe to Journal of Applied Measurement

Go to Institute for Objective Measurement Home Page. The Rasch Measurement SIG (AERA) thanks the Institute for Objective Measurement for inviting the publication of Rasch Measurement Transactions on the Institute's website, www.rasch.org.

Coming Rasch-related Events
May 17 - June 21, 2024, Fri.-Fri. On-line workshop: Rasch Measurement - Core Topics (E. Smith, Winsteps), www.statistics.com
June 12 - 14, 2024, Wed.-Fri. 1st Scandinavian Applied Measurement Conference, Kristianstad University, Kristianstad, Sweden http://www.hkr.se/samc2024
June 21 - July 19, 2024, Fri.-Fri. On-line workshop: Rasch Measurement - Further Topics (E. Smith, Winsteps), www.statistics.com
Aug. 5 - Aug. 6, 2024, Fri.-Fri. 2024 Inaugural Conference of the Society for the Study of Measurement (Berkeley, CA), Call for Proposals
Aug. 9 - Sept. 6, 2024, Fri.-Fri. On-line workshop: Many-Facet Rasch Measurement (E. Smith, Facets), www.statistics.com
Oct. 4 - Nov. 8, 2024, Fri.-Fri. On-line workshop: Rasch Measurement - Core Topics (E. Smith, Winsteps), www.statistics.com
Jan. 17 - Feb. 21, 2025, Fri.-Fri. On-line workshop: Rasch Measurement - Core Topics (E. Smith, Winsteps), www.statistics.com
May 16 - June 20, 2025, Fri.-Fri. On-line workshop: Rasch Measurement - Core Topics (E. Smith, Winsteps), www.statistics.com
June 20 - July 18, 2025, Fri.-Fri. On-line workshop: Rasch Measurement - Further Topics (E. Smith, Facets), www.statistics.com
Oct. 3 - Nov. 7, 2025, Fri.-Fri. On-line workshop: Rasch Measurement - Core Topics (E. Smith, Winsteps), www.statistics.com

 

The URL of this page is www.rasch.org/rmt/rmt143f.htm

Website: www.rasch.org/rmt/contents.htm