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Problems in Doing Nursing Research

In the last issue, this column referenced five types of error sources which arise when conducting research with human subjects. The following article speaks succinctly to a major concern of clinical research; i.e., measurement problems, and poses one of the traditional psychometric strategies for working with measurement error. Measurement is an essential element of science. One must be able to obtain measures of all variables in a given theory if the theory is to be evaluatedforitsvalidity. In nursing, as in thesocialsciences, the lackof valid and reliable measuring instruments has been a major deterrent to the development of a predictive science. Some error is observed in any type of measurement, whether it is physiological, as temperature or blood pressure, or psychological as intelligence. This measurement error can be either systematic or random error. Systematic error isconstant or biased. For example, test scores may tend to beall high or all low, orthe instrument readings may tend to be all positive or all negative. Random error is self-compensating; it is the chance element present in measures due to unknown causes (Zeller 8 Carmines 1980; Kerlinger 1973). This paper is concerned with such measurement error. These errors are important because to the extent they are present in any study, limits are placed on the degree to which one can depend on the data obtained by the measuring instruments. A score obtained for an individual has two components: a true score and an error. In other words: