Glossary / Lexicon

Deutsch: Maß / Español: medida / Português: medida / Français: mesure / Italiano: misura

In psychology, a measure is a tool, instrument, or method used to quantify, assess, or evaluate psychological constructs such as abilities, traits, behaviors, or mental states. Measures can be quantitative (e.g., test scores, rating scales) or qualitative (e.g., interviews, observations) and are essential for research, diagnosis, and treatment planning.

Application Area

• Psychometrics: Developing reliable and valid tools for psychological assessment.

• Clinical Psychology: Using measures for diagnosis, monitoring progress, and outcome Evaluation.

• Educational Psychology: Assessing cognitive abilities, learning styles, and academic skills.

• Organizational Psychology: Measuring employee engagement, job satisfaction, and performance.

• Health Psychology: Evaluating stress, coping strategies, and health behaviors.

Examples

• Standardized tests like the Beck Depression Inventory measure depression severity.

• The Wechsler Intelligence Scale is a measure of cognitive ability (IQ).

• Self-report questionnaires measure personality traits, such as the Big Five Inventory.

• Behavioral observations are used as measures in developmental psychology.

Recommendations

• Select appropriate measures: Choose tools that are validated for the specific population and context.

• Consider cultural relevance: Ensure measures are suitable across different cultures and languages.

• Interpret results carefully: Use clinical judgment and consider the broader context, not just raw scores.

• Combine methods: Use multiple measures (triangulation) for a comprehensive understanding.

• Stay updated: Regularly review the literature for new and improved measures in your area.

Articles with 'Measure' in the title

• Behavioral measures: Behavioral measures refers to overt actions and reactions that are observed and recorded, exclusive of self-reported behavior.
• Behavioral Measures: Behavioral Measures refers to the ways to study overt actions and observable, recordable reactions. In the psychology context, behavioral measures refer to the methods or techniques that are used to assess or evaluate behavior
• Bertillon Measurements: Bertillon Measurements (Bertillon's anthropometrical system) of personal identification was divided into three integrated parts: (1) the bodily measurements that required measurements, conducted with the utmost precision and under . . .
• Coping measures: Coping measures: Coping measures refer to any efforts by an individual to regulate negative feelings about changes in his or her environment.
• Deficit measurement: Deficit measurement refers to an approach to Neuropsychological assessment for understanding general conditions and disease states about a patient by examining scores that are impaired and comparing them with other factors known about the . . .
• Implicit Attitudes Measures: Implicit Attitudes Measures refer to tests that measure a person's attitudes, example, about race, without the person's Awareness of what is being measured
• Independent-measures design: Independent-measures design:
• Independent-measures t test: Independent-measures t test:
• Interval measure: Interval measure is defined as a level of measurement describing a variable whose attributes are rankordered and have equal distances between adjacent attributes
• Measurement: Measurement refers to the process of assigning numbers or categories to performance according to rules and standards, example, scoring a test - the systematic assignment of numbers or names to objects or attributes of objects
• Measurement error: Measurement error is the component of an observed test score that is neither the true score nor the quality you wish to measure. Measurement error refers to the degree to which a measurement or observation deviates from the true or . . .
• Measurement of intelligence: Measurement of intelligence refers to the use of tests to measure various mental capacities, as in, the speed of mental processes, the ability to learn over trials
• Network measures: Network measures refers to the earliest research looked at a person’s networks, asking whether the person was married or not or asking how many people the person saw on a weekly basis
• Nominal measure: Nominal measure refers to a variable whose attributes have only the characteristics of exhaustiveness and mutual exclusiveness. In other words, a level of measurement describing a variable that has attributes that are merely different, as . . .
• Objective measures: Objective measures are dependent variables such as reaction time that can be easily verified. Likewise, psychological tests that draw conclusions about people's states or traits on the basis of their responses to unambiguous stimuli, such . . .
• Ordinal measure: Ordinal measure is defined as a level of measurement describing a variable with attributes we can rank-order along some dimension. An example would be Socio-economic status as composed of the attributes high, medium, low
• Outcome measures: Outcome measures in Psychotherapy research, are indicators of patient functioning following treatment which is used to gauge the treatment effectiveness
• Physiological measure: Physiological measure is defined as the measurement obtained by recording a physiological activity, such as heart rate. Physiological measure is the most popular type of indirect variable based on the idea that if the behavior is a private . . .
• Public health measures: Public health measures refer to community actions to protect or improve the health of society's members, for example, to combat threats posed by communicable diseases, provide safe drinking water, and dispose of sewage, garbage, and other . . .
• Repeated measurement: Repeated measurement: repeated measurement is when responses are measured on more than two (2) occasions, not just before and after intervention, to assess trends
• Time-of-measurement effects: Time-of-measurement effects refers to one of the three (3) fundamental effects examined in developmental research, along with age and cohort effects, which result from the time at which the data are collected
• Trace Measures: Trace Measures are measure which are the by-products of interactions. Researchers assess an area by looking at the amount of graffiti, litter, and other signs of how well an area is kept

Weblinks

• quality-database.eu: 'Measure' in the glossary of the quality-database.eu
• kriminal-lexikon.de: 'Maß' in the kriminal-lexikon.de (German)

Summary

In psychology, a measure is a fundamental tool for assessing psychological phenomena. Well-designed measures support accurate diagnosis, research validity, and effective intervention, while poor measures can lead to misinterpretation and harm. Careful selection, application, and interpretation of measures are essential for ethical and meaningful practice.

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