Minimizing Error in Measurement

Lectures

Measurement for Worldwide Cross-Cultural Comparisons - Part 2: Minimizing Measurement Error

In Part 2 on Measurement, Carol Ember discusses measurement error in more detail and methods for minimizing it, including the importance of specifying a time and place focus when comparing ethnographic texts, creating data quality scores, and minimizing coding biases.

Exercises

There are two versions of this exercise that are designed to help you intuitively understand the effect of systematic and random error on correlations. We strongly suggest the R version because not only will it help you become more proficient in R, but that version also gives you the opportunity to do multiple simulations. This version is provided as an alternative and correlations can be calculated in Excel.

• R Exercise

• Excel Exercise

Suggested Reading

Chapter 5 in Ember & Ember 2009