Avatar feed
Responses: 7
LTC Stephen F.
5
5
0
Edited >1 y ago
Thank you, my friend LTC Greg Henning for including a Dilbert Strip with this perspective on Goodhart's Law And The BS Test.
It seems typical that anthropologist Marilyn Strathern simplified Goodhart's Law to "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."

Background extracted
1. Campbell's law was developed by psychologist and social scientist Donald T. Campbell who often wrote about research methodology, which states: "The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor."
a. I concur with his assessment "Achievement tests may well be valuable indicators of general school achievement under conditions of normal teaching aimed at general competence. But when test scores become the goal of the teaching process, they both lose their value as indicators of educational status and distort the educational process in undesirable ways. (Similar biases of course surround the use of objective tests in courses or as entrance examinations.)"

2. Background: British economist Charles Goodhart, first advanced the idea in a 1975 article. His original formulation was: "Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes."
a. All metrics of scientific evaluation are bound to be abused. Goodhart's law (named after the British economist who may have been the first to announce it) states that when a feature of the economy is picked as an indicator of the economy, then it inexorably ceases to function as that indicator because people start to game it.

FYI LTC Stephen C. LTC (Join to see) Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen Lt Col Charlie Brown Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. "Bill" Price Maj Marty Hogan SCPO Morris Ramsey SFC William Farrell SGT Mark Halmrast Sgt Randy Wilber Sgt John H. SGT Gregory Lawritson CPL Dave Hoover SPC Margaret Higgins SSgt Brian Brakke 1stSgt Eugene Harless SSG William Jones SSG Diane R.
(5)
Comment
(0)
Avatar small
SFC George Smith
2
2
0
Thanks For The Share...
(2)
Comment
(0)
Avatar small

Join nearly 2 million former and current members of the US military, just like you.

close