Campbell's law
{{Short description|Adage about perverse incentives}}
Campbell's law is an adage developed by Donald T. Campbell, a psychologist and social scientist who often wrote about research methodology, which states:
{{quote|The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.{{cite journal | last1 = Campbell | first1 = Donald T | year = 1979| title = Assessing the impact of planned social change| doi = 10.1016/0149-7189(79)90048-X | journal = Evaluation and Program Planning | volume = 2 | issue = 1| pages = 67–90 }}}}
Applications
Campbell's law is related to the cobra effect, which is the sometimes unintended negative effect of public policy and other government interventions in economics, commerce, and healthcare.{{Cite web|last=Coy|first=Peter|date=2021-03-26|title=Goodhart's Law Rules the Modern World. Here Are Nine Examples|url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-26/goodhart-s-law-rules-the-modern-world-here-are-nine-examples?sref=iFmGzt4G|url-status=live|access-date=2021-06-03|website=Bloomberg.com|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210425123458/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-26/goodhart-s-law-rules-the-modern-world-here-are-nine-examples?sref=iFmGzt4G |archive-date=2021-04-25 }}
=Education=
In 1976, Campbell wrote: "Achievement tests may well be valuable indicators of general school achievement under conditions of normal teaching aimed at general competence. But when test scores become the goal of the teaching process, they both lose their value as indicators of educational status and distort the educational process in undesirable ways. (Similar biases of course surround the use of objective tests in courses or as entrance examinations.)"
The social science principle of Campbell's law is used to point out the negative consequences of high-stakes testing in U.S. classrooms. This may take the form of teaching to the test or outright cheating.{{cite magazine|last=Aviv|first=Rachel|date=21 July 2014|title=Wrong Answer|magazine=The New Yorker|url=http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/07/21/wrong-answer?currentPage=all}} "The High-Stakes Education Rule" is identified and analyzed in the book "Measuring Up: What Educational Testing Really Tells Us".{{cite book |first=Daniel M. |last=Koretz |title=Measuring Up |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HcDW1uGUTYwC |date=2009 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-03972-8}}
Campbell's law has been used in criticism of Race to the Top, an Obama administration program, and the No Child Left Behind Act, enacted during the George W. Bush Administration.{{Cite web|url=https://edexcellence.net/commentary/education-gadfly-daily/common-core-watch/2013/trust-but-verify-the-real-lessons-of-campbells-law.html|first=Kathleen|last=Porter-Magee|title=Trust but verify: The real lessons of Campbell's Law|website=The Thomas B. Fordham Institute|language=en|access-date=2018-06-30}}
Similar rules
There are closely related ideas known by different names, such as Goodhart's law and the Lucas critique. Another concept related to Campbell's law emerged in 2006 when UK researchers Rebecca Boden and Debbie Epstein published an analysis of evidence-based policy, a practice espoused by Prime Minister Tony Blair. In the paper, Boden and Epstein described how a government that tries to base its policy on evidence can actually end up producing corrupted data because it "seeks to capture and control the knowledge producing processes to the point where this type of 'research' might best be described as 'policy-based evidence'."{{Cite journal|last1=Boden|first1=Rebecca|last2=Epstein|first2=Debbie|date=2006|title=Managing the research imagination? Globalisation and research in higher education|journal=Globalisation, Societies and Education|volume=4|issue=2|pages=223–236|doi=10.1080/14767720600752619|s2cid=144077070 }}
When someone distorts decisions in order to improve the performance measure, they often surrogate, coming to believe that the measure is a better measure of true performance than it really is.{{Cite journal |last=Bentley |first=Jeremiah W. |date=2017-02-24 |title=Decreasing Operational Distortion and Surrogation through Narrative Reporting |journal=The Accounting Review |location=Rochester, New York |ssrn=2924726}}
Campbell's law imparts a more positive but complicated message. It is important to measure progress making use of quantitative and qualitative indicators.{{Cite web|url=http://monitoringevaluation.weebly.com/quantitative--qualitative-indicators.html|title=Quantitative & Qualitative Indicators|website=Monitoring & Evaluation|language=en|access-date=2018-06-30}} However, using quantitative data for evaluation can distort and manipulate these indicators. Concrete measures must be adopted to reduce alteration and manipulation of information. In his article "Assessing the Impact of Planned Social Change",{{Cite journal|date=1979-01-01|title=Assessing the impact of planned social change|journal=Evaluation and Program Planning|language=en|volume=2|issue=1|pages=67–90|doi=10.1016/0149-7189(79)90048-X|issn=0149-7189|last1=Campbell|first1=Donald T.}} Campbell emphasized that "the more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor."
See also
- {{annotated link|Perverse incentive}}
- {{annotated link|Reflexivity (social theory)}}
- {{annotated link|Proxy (statistics)}}
- {{annotated link|Goodhart's law}} (Strathern variant)
- {{annotated link|Observer effect (physics)}}
- {{annotated link|Lucas critique}}
- {{annotated link|The purpose of a system is what it does}}
Notes
{{Reflist}}
References
{{refbegin}}
- {{cite web |last=Rothstein |first=Jesse |title=Review of Learning About Teaching |publisher=National Education Policy Center |date=2011-01-13 |url=http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-learning-about-teaching}}
- {{cite web |title=Learning About Teaching |publisher=Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation |date=2010-12-10 |url=http://www.gatesfoundation.org/college-ready-education/Documents/preliminary-findings-research-paper.pdf}}
- {{cite news |last1=Berliner |first1=David C. |last2=Nichols |first2=Sharon L. |title=High-Stakes Testing Is Putting the Nation At Risk |newspaper=Education Week |date=2007-03-12|url=http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2007/03/12/27berliner.h26.html}}
- {{cite web |last1=Nichols |first1=Sharon L. |last2=Berliner |first2=David C. |title=The Inevitable Corruption of Indicators and Educators Through High-Stakes Testing |publisher=The Great Lakes Center for Education Research & Practice |location=East Lansing, MI |date=March 2005 |url=http://epsl.asu.edu//epru/documents/EPSL-0503-101-EPRU.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170709050743/http://epsl.asu.edu//epru/documents/EPSL-0503-101-EPRU.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=2017-07-09 }}
- {{cite book |first1=Sharon L. |last1=Nichols |first2=David C. |last2=Berliner |title=Collateral damage: how high-stakes testing corrupts America's schools |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MT0mAQAAIAAJ |date=2007 |publisher=Harvard Education Press |isbn=978-1-891792-36-6}}
- {{cite web |first=Tony |last=Waters |url=http://www.ethnography.com/index.php?s=Campbell%27s+Law |title=Campbell's law, planned social change, Vietnam war deaths, and condom distributions in refuge camps |publisher=Ethnography.com |date=14 May 2013}}
{{refend}}
{{Unintended consequences}}