Measuring the Unmeasurable: Baby Steps Toward Shared Truth |
“I know it when I see it.”
This famous line comes from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in 1964, when he was asked to define hard-core pornography. He couldn’t define it formally, but trusted that it was intuitively recognizable.
There are many things in life like this: the feelings we recognize instantly and viscerally, yet struggle to define or quantify.
We know these states when we experience them. Measuring them is another matter.
Recently, I conducted a research study testing hula—a traditional Hawaiian cultural dance—for individuals with Parkinson’s disease. At first, participants were understandably skeptical. But they quickly fell in love with the class: moving to music, learning from a charismatic instructor, and sharing the experience together.
After 12 weeks, something remarkable happened. They were transformed. They became close friends, supported one another, and universally said the class had changed their lives.
As scientists, we tried to capture this transformation using the best tools available to us. We administered validated questionnaires: quality-of-life scales, wellness scales, and self-efficacy measures. These instruments are designed to translate subjective experience into data that can be analyzed, compared, and shared.
And yet, these tools are still self-reported, subjective questionnaires—useful, but far from........