The word indicators is the plural of the term indicator. An indicator is, as the name says, an element that is used to indicate or indicate something. An indicator can be both concrete and abstract, a sign, a feeling, a sensation, or a real-life object or item.
We can find indicators in all kinds of spaces and moments, as well as each science has its type of indicators that are used to follow a certain research path.
The indicators can be considered as reference points, due to the information and indication they contain per se, being able to provide quantitative or qualitative information.
The information will be made up of data that in turn is made up of numbers, measurements, opinions, events, among others. Any of them will allow us to know sensitive information that will tell us how to perform at the behest of a process.
The main function of the indicators is to indicate data, procedures to be followed, phenomena, specific situations. Normally, each type of science develops its own type of indicators that may be more or less effective and whose final objective will be to guide the analysis or study of the phenomena of that science. In this sense, the indicators that the empirical, natural and exact sciences can count on can be much more concrete, adjustable and measurable. On the contrary, the indicators of phenomena, situations or realities in the field of social sciences are always much closer to being debated and discussed since social processes are never reducible to rules or numbers.
Accuracy and consistency
It will be rigorous that the indicators contain extreme precision and that they correspond in a coherent way with the subject under analysis. They must also accommodate changes, that will make them reliable and demonstrable, and they will have to be easy to achieve.
Let us think that a certain event occurs and we propose to study it, the indicators will allow us to know in a concrete way the magnitude, intensity, evolution, its effects and provide a forecast for the future, among other options.
The economic indicators, for example, inflation, poverty, unemployment rate, will express in numbers the characteristics of the economy of a nation and through the numbers that these reflect we will be able to know its progress, if inflation is high we will be able to easily deduce that the economy of that country has been complicated.
The same occurs with other types of indicators, such as demographics, which will allow us to know in numbers the characteristics of a community. The composition by age, by gender, its distribution, among other matters of interest.
They provide sensitive information to develop policies
For government management, the indicators provide sensitive and highly relevant information since they allow us to know for sure realities of the country, and where appropriate, promote policies that allow the correction of those indicators that are wrong or below than expected.
Today, for example, it is possible through indices such as Human Development (HDI) to evaluate the quality of life of the world's populations. It has been proposed by the United Nations development program as a great tool to learn about this important aspect.
Indicators can guide us in turn to other types of indicators and this is when we must talk about hierarchical indicators or different levels of indicators since some more basic elements or signals can lead to more obvious or more complex indicators depending on the case.
Many aspects of daily life also have a number of indicators that can guide us in our daily activities. For example, the house, the city, the neighborhood and the public space are all spaces in which we find thousands of different indicators that determine if we can do something or not, if we should do it or not, if something is dangerous or not, if we are going the right way, if what we intend to do will be successful, among many other possibilities.
