On sense and nonsense in measuring organization in free recall: Oops, pardon me, my assumptions are showing.

Discusses the importance of being aware of the assumptions which must be made when applying statistical models or methods to the measurement of psychological phenomena. An example is presented of how different investigators were led to substantially different conclusions as a result of making different assumptions, sometimes without explicitly stating them, about the variables involved in measuring clustering in free recall. It is emphasized that there is no single "best" measure of organization, that the individual investigator needs to be aware of the assumptions underlying the measure he is using, and that the application of statistical models to the measurement of psychological problems needs to be guided by some consideration of the psychometric adequacy of the measures being used and a theoretical rationale for judging the appropriateness of the assumptions involved. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)