Introduction and Overview
This introductory chapter overviews the history of construct conceptualization and measurement, emphasizing events and debates in social work illustrating broader trends in the social and behavioral sciences. Key actors are identified, and their contributions to the framing of social problems, shaping of psychometric methods, and the interpretation and application of scales, tests, and indexes are summarized. The importance of carefully considering the social consequences and implications of construct definitions is introduced, with emphasis on the nature and scope of the target problem and attention to who will use the new measure, with whom, and for what purposes. The influence of evidence-based practice is discussed, and an overview of subsequent chapter objectives is provided.
Keywords: psychometrics, practice effectiveness, scale, construct, validity, instrument design, history
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