Review of: Logical aspects of educational measurement

Reviews the book by B. O. Smith . This book has grown out of an attempt on the part of its author to clarify the meaning of educational measurement for himself. This has led him to a consideration of the nature of measurement in the physical sciences and to an examination of the learning process and its outcomes. The thesis is then developed that measurement in education (and psychology) meets only one of the two fundamental axioms of measurement; i.e. the existing scales permit the ordering of individuals but do not possess additive units. In the quest for equal units by way of statistical manipulations "it has been assumed that addition is made possible by the derivation of equal units, whereas equal units are established by addition" (p. 142). The reviewer finds himself in agreement with this verbal and logical knockout of those who claim to have established equal units in mental measurement. Those who have been skeptical of the equality of "equal" units will find herein some potent arguments to bolster their skepticism. The first four chapters seem a bit oversimplified-hence tedious to read; Chapters V and VI, on the logical aspects of validity and the relationship between performance and validity, are somewhat lacking in conciseness and pointedness; the last three chapters are more succinct. The entire argument could be developed in one-third the space.