Operational Definitions in a 4th grade class

[Steven_S_Prevette@rl.gov]

My office roommate reports that her 4th grade son came home a little
frustrated with an assignment.  The math teacher assigned the students to
make a chart of how many family members there were in each family.  I assume
the end product is to be a histogram.  But it was turning into something
harder to do than her son initially thought.  He was having trouble even
coming up with his own datum - how many members were their in his own
family?

She talked with the teacher, and said the conversation was quite familiar to
what I often end up discussing with Hanford workers - how have you defined
what you are measuring?

In this case - how many members are their in a family?  Do pets count? Does
grandma and grandpa count?  The teacher did say he specifically set up the
exercise in order to have the students delve into deciding how to count
things.  They are having major discussions in class of how to set up the
operational definitions.  Very similar to the animal cracker counting
exercise.

Steve Prevette
Site Technical Authority for Statistical Trending
Environment, Safety and Health
Fluor Hanford, A Fluor Global Services Company
ASQ Certified Quality Engineer
steven_s_prevette@rl.gov
509-373-9371