Measurement schmeasurement: Questionable measurement practices and how to avoid them by Dr Jessica Flake

About the speaker

For details about the speaker, please see https://www.jessicakayflake.com.

About the talk

Questionable measurement practices are decisions researchers make that raise doubts about the validity of the measures, and ultimately the validity of study conclusions. They make it impossible to evaluate a wide range of potential validity threats to the study’s conclusions. I will demonstrate that psychology is plagued by a measurement schmeasurement attitude: QMPs are common, offer a stunning source of researcher degrees of freedom, pose a serious threat to cumulative psychological science, but are largely ignored. I will review a list of questions researchers and consumers of scientific research can consider to identify and avoid QMPs. Transparent answers to these measurement questions promote rigorous research, allow for thorough evaluations of a study’s inferences, and are necessary for meaningful replication studies.