27: Measurement Literacy

Conversion table from kilometers to miles.

To be literate in measurement is to have the ability to understand quantities. Measurement is an important form of literacy because it allows us to quantify objects. Measurement literacy is also an important part of today’s society because we work daily with length, weight, and time. Because measurement is a daily part of our lives, we rarely pay attention to it.

Measurement is essentially anything that can be quantified. We use measurement to purchase gasoline by the gallon, food by the pound, and electricity by the kilowatt. We also use measurement to measure the amount of land a person owns, the passage of time, the distance between cities, money by currency, energy by the joule, and temperature in degrees Fahrenheit (Beckmann, 2005). Measurement is also used for the assessment of attitudes, values and perception in surveys, or in the testing of individual aptitude. Even music is a type of measurement; it’s the division of time by which melody and rhythm are regulated.