Here - Paul Barrett

Quantity and Measurement Quantity and Measurement“More generally, in measurement some(unknown) value of a quantitative variable isidentified as being r units. A UNIT ofMEASUREMENT is simply a particular valueof the relevant variable. It is singled out as thatvalue relative to which all others are to becompared.”“Let the unit be Y and let the value to bemeasured be X. Then a measurement has theform X = rY....Measurement requires the development ofprocedures whereby values X and Y may bebrought into comparison and their ratioassessed. Such procedures are the methodsof measurement"MGMT 740 – 813th March 2006 MGMT 740 – 814th March 2006 Quantity and Measurement Quantity and MeasurementMichell (2001), p. 212 …“Measurement, as a scientific method, is a wayof finding out (more or less reliably) what level ofan attribute is possessed by the object or objectsunder investigation. However, because measurementis the assessment of the level of an attribute via itsnumerical relation (ratio) to another level of the sameattribute (the unit selected), and because onlyquantitative attributes sustain ratios of this sort,measurement applies only to quantitative attributes.A variable is anything relative to which objectsmay vary. For example, weight is a variable,different objects can have different weights, buteach object can only possess one such weight atany point in time. A quantitative variablesatisfies certain conditions of ordinal andadditive structure. For example, weight is aquantity because weights are ordered accordingto their magnitude, and each specific weight isconstituted additively of other specifiedweights. Likewise lengths.MGMT 740 – 815th March 2006 MGMT 740 – 816th March 2006