Keynote 9am July 18, 2023

Professor Daniel Oberski – Social measurement: how are we doing?

Our goal as methodologists is to measure human behavior, opinion, and decision-making. What are we doing to achieve this goal, and how well are we doing at it? In this talk I will discuss some of the measurement techniques we have developed over time based on various sources of data, including (but not limited to) surveys, digital trace data, administrative registers, behavioral observations, experiments, and machine learning, across different disciplines that deal with data generated by humans. I will reflect on current knowledge regarding the quality of our measures, as well as current practices of taking that knowledge into account in applied research. Finally, I will reflect on some potential avenues for improvement.