Brodsky Stanley L, Lichtenstein Bronwen
Psychology Department, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, United States.
Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, United States.
Front Psychol. 2020 Mar 31;11:562. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00562. eCollection 2020.
In medicine and social sciences, the phrase "gold standard" is often used to characterize an object or procedure described as unequivocally the best in its genre, against which all others should be compared. Examples of this usage are readily available in rigorously peer-reviewed publications, touted by test publishers, and appear in descriptions of methodologies by social science researchers. The phrase does not accurately describe commonly accepted measures, tests, and instruments. Instead, the descriptor can be ambiguous and misleading. This paper presents an overview of the history of the gold standard and its current applications to medicine and the social sciences. We question the use of the phrase "the gold standard" and suggest the additional operational use of a "pyrite principle" as a less presumptuous frame of reference. In thinking about validity and standards, the pyrite principle permits an understanding of standards as authoritative rather than fixed constructs in behavioral and health sciences.
在医学和社会科学领域，“金标准”一词常被用于描述某一事物或程序，称其在同类中无疑是最佳的，其他所有事物都应与之进行比较。这种用法的例子在经过严格同行评审的出版物中随处可见，被测试出版商所推崇，也出现在社会科学研究人员对方法论的描述中。但该词并不能准确描述被普遍接受的测量方法、测试手段和工具。相反，这个描述可能含糊不清且具有误导性。本文概述了金标准的历史及其在医学和社会科学领域的当前应用。我们对“金标准”这一表述的使用提出质疑，并建议额外运用“黄铁矿原则”作为一种不那么专断的参考框架。在思考效度和标准时，黄铁矿原则有助于将标准理解为行为科学和健康科学中具有权威性而非固定不变的概念。
