What does the term "precision" refer to in measurements?

The term "precision" in measurements specifically refers to the degree of variation in repeated values. This means that when measurements are taken multiple times under the same conditions, the results should be consistently close to each other, even if they may not necessarily be close to the true or target value. Precision indicates the repeatability or consistency of the measurements, regardless of how accurate those measurements are relative to an accepted standard or true value.

In contrast, 'closeness to the true value' pertains to accuracy, which evaluates how close a measurement is to the actual or real value. The average of all measurements reflects a central tendency but does not directly imply precision, as a set of measurements can be consistently far from the true value yet have a low variation. Lastly, the highest recorded value does not provide information about the consistency of the measurements, thus is not related to precision in a statistical context.