Measurements in the context of "Social Sciences"

Geodesy or geodetics is the science of measuring and representing the geometry, gravity, and spatial orientation of the Earth in temporally varying 3D. It is called planetary geodesy when studying other astronomical bodies, such as planets or circumplanetary systems.

Geodynamical phenomena, including crustal motion, tides, and polar motion, can be studied by designing global and national control networks, applying space geodesy and terrestrial geodetic techniques, and relying on datums and coordinate systems.

Accuracy and precision are measures of observational error; accuracy is how close a given set of measurements is to the true value and precision is how close the measurements are to each other.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) defines a related measure:trueness, "the closeness of agreement between the arithmetic mean of a large number of test results and the true or accepted reference value."

Repeatability or test–retest reliability is the closeness of the agreement between the results of successive measurements of the same measure, when carried out under the same conditions of measurement. In other words, the measurements are taken by a single person or instrument on the same item, under the same conditions, and in a short period of time. A less-than-perfect test–retest reliability causes test–retest variability. Such variability can be caused by, for example, intra-individual variability and inter-observer variability. A measurement may be said to be repeatable when this variation is smaller than a predetermined acceptance criterion.

Test–retest variability is practically used, for example, in medical monitoring of conditions. In these situations, there is often a predetermined "critical difference", and for differences in monitored values that are smaller than this critical difference, the possibility of variability as a sole cause of the difference may be considered in addition to, for example, changes in diseases or treatments.