Is it measurement? The construction of data and the communication of results in psychosocial studies of work and health

Abstract

In this paper I ask whether current theories of measurement can account for the practice of measurement in quantitative studies of the relationship between psychosocial working conditions and health. According to a review of the most frequently cited recent studies from the field, Likert scaling of standardized, self-reporting questionnaires is the dominant method of data construction. This method of data construction is compared to the criteria of measurement of four normative theories: Michell’s, Campbell’s, Stevens’, and Luce and Tukey’s. Stevens’ ‘operational’ theory is constructivist, the three other theories representationalist. The result of the investigation is that only Stevens’ theory can account for the data construction practice dominant in the field of psychosocial working conditions and health. In addition, the investigation reveals that even though the practitioners of the field construct data as if they subscribed to Stevens’ constructivist theory, they communicate their results as if their data constructing practices satisfied representationalist theories of measurement. In the final section of the paper I address the question of what made the development of this split between the actual practice of research and the scientists’ presentation of their results possible.