In defence of constructivist, utility‐driven psychometrics for the ‘post‐psychometric era’

In the years since Hodges’ seminal 2013 paper that placed the phrase in its title, numerous authors have claimed that we are either moving into, or already living in, a ‘post-psychometric era’ in which subjective and qualitative data are increasingly valued. What does this actually mean? There is a post-for most things, from post-modernism to post-humanism to post-rock. Each is a complex and nuanced notion. However, they are bound together, in that 'post' typically indicates an idea that is differentiated from an antithetical conception. Although post-psychometric is different to anti-psychometric, it is rarely articulated as such. In fact, it is barely articulated at all, aside from being ‘beyond’ psychometrics. Does it supersede the psychometric? Is it a natural evolution that builds on previous epochs? At the time of writing, Hodges’ paper has been cited 128 times. Even if authors add a caveat on what they mean by post-psychometric, anti-psychometric conceptions saturate the literature. Moving ‘beyond’ is too often interpreted as moving ‘away’ from psychometrics. Hodges identified three imperatives from psychometric discourse that naturally elicited strong reservations from medical educators.