Trueness looks past the scatter of single results at where their long-run average settles relative to a reference value. It is a qualitative property whose numerical expression is bias: a method with small bias has good trueness. Together with precision it makes up accuracy, which is how analytical chemists and test labs split the question of whether a method gets the right answer.
Method has good precision but poor trueness on the low standard, recovery is only 92 percent.
Related terms
Bias
The estimated systematic offset of a measuring system: its average reading minus the reference value.
Precision
How well repeat readings of the same item agree with one another, with no reference to whether they are right.
Accuracy
How close a measured value comes to the true value, a qualitative idea rather than a reported number.
Systematic error
Error component that pushes every repeat reading the same way, or follows a pattern you can predict and correct.