Chapter 5 – Conceptualization,
Operationalization, and Measurement
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Measuring Anything That Exists
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Conceptualization
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Definitions in Descriptive and Explanatory Studies
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Operationalization Choices
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Criteria of Measurement Quality
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The
Ethics of Measurement
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Quick Quiz
Measuring Anything that Exists
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Measurement – careful, deliberate observations of the real world for the purpose
of describing objects and events in terms of the attributes composing the
variable.
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Measurement – Practice
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Political Party Affiliation
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Age
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Grade Point Average
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Satisfaction with College
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Religious Affiliation
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Conceptions, Concepts, and Reality
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Practice: Prejudice
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Conceptualization – the mental process whereby fuzzy and imprecise notions
(concepts) are made more specific and precise.
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Concepts as Constructs
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Concepts are constructs derived by mutual agreement from mental images.
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Conceptions summarize collections of seemingly related observations and
experiences.
Conceptualization
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The
process through which we specify what we mean when we use particular terms in
research.
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We
cannot meaningfully answer a question without a working agreement about the
meaning of the outcome.
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Conceptualization processes a specific, agreed-upon meaning for a concept for
the purposes of research.
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Indicators and Dimensions
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Indicator – an observation that we choose to consider as a reflection of a
variable we wish to study.
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Dimension – a specifiable aspect of a concept.
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Indicators and Dimensions – Practice
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Religious Affiliation
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College Success
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Political Activity
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Poverty
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Binge Drinking
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Fear of Crime
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The
Interchangeability of Indicators
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If several different indicators all represent the same concept, all of them will
behave the same way the concept would behave if it were real and could be
observed.
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Real, Nominal, and Operational Definitions
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Specification – the process through which concepts are made more specific.
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A
nominal definition is one that is simply assigned to a term without any claim
that the definition represents a “real” entity.
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An operational definition specifies precisely how a concept will be measured –
that is, the operations we will perform.
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Creating Conceptual Order
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Conceptualization
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Nominal Definition
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Operational Definition
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Real World Measurement
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Conceptualization – Practice
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Anomie
Definitions in Descriptive and Explanatory Studies
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Definitions are more problematic for descriptive research than for explanatory
research.
Operationalization Choices
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Conceptualization is the refinement and specification of abstract concepts.
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Operationalization is the development of specific research procedures that will
result in empirical observations representing those concepts in the real world.
Operationalization Choices
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Range of Variation
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To what extent is the research willing to combine attributes in fairly gross
categories?
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Variation between the Extremes
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To what degree is the operationalization of variables precise?
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A
Note on Dimensions
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Defining Variables and Attributes
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An attribute is a characteristic or quality of something (ex: female, old,
student).
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A
variable is a logical set of attributes (ex: gender, age).
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Every variable must have two important qualities.
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The
attributes composing it should be exhaustive.
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Attributes must be mutually exclusive.
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Levels of Measurement
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Nominal
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Ordinal
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Interval
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Ratio
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Levels of Measurement – Nominal
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Variables whose attributes have only the characteristics of exhaustiveness and
mutually exclusiveness.
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Examples: gender, religious affiliation, college major, hair color, birthplace,
nationality
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Levels of Measurement – Ordinal
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Variables with attributes we can logically rank in order.
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Examples: socioeconomic status, level of conflict, prejudice, conservativeness,
hardness
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Levels of Measurement – Interval
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Variables for which the actual distance between attributes has meaning.
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Examples: temperature (Fahrenheit), IQ score
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Levels of Measurement – Ratio
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Variables whose attributes meet the requirements of an interval measure, and has
a true zero point.
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Examples: temperature (Kelvin), age, length of time, number of organizations,
number of groups, number of As received in college
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Implications of Levels of Measurement
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Analyses require minimum levels of measurement
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Some variables can be treated as multiple levels of measurement
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Single or Multiple Indicators
Criteria of Measurement Quality
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Precision and Accuracy
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Reliability
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Validity
Criteria of Measurement Quality
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Precision and Accuracy
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Precise measures are superior to imprecise ones.
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Precision is not the same as accuracy.
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Reliability – the quality of measurement method that suggests the same data
would have been collected each time in repeated observations of the same
phenomenon.
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Reliability is not the same as accuracy.
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Test-Retest Method
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To
make the same measurement more than once.
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Split-Half Method
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Multiple sets of randomly assigned variables should produce the same
classifications
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Established Measures
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Reliability of Research Workers
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Validity – a term describing a measure that accurately reflects the concept it
is intended to measure.
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Face Validity – the quality of an indicator that makes it a reasonable measure
of some variable.
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Criterion-Related Validity – the degree to which a measure relates to some
external criterion.
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Construct Validity – the degree to which a measure relates to other variables as
expected within a system of theoretical relationships.
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Content Validity – the degree to which a measure covers the range of meanings
included within a concept.