Using an optical computing device includes optically interacting electromagnetic radiation with a sample and a first integrated computational element arranged within a primary channel, optically interacting the electromagnetic radiation with the sample and a second integrated computational element arranged within a reference channel, producing first and second modified electromagnetic radiations from the first and second integrated computational elements, respectively, receiving the first modified electromagnetic radiation with a first detector, and receiving the second modified electromagnetic radiation with a second detector, generating a first output signal with the first detector and a second output signal with the second detector, and computationally combining the first and second output signals with a signal processor to determine the characteristic of interest of the sample.