1. Operationalizing Concepts Issues in operationally defining your concepts, validity, reliability and scales

2. Review  What is conceptualization?  What is operationalization?  Null Hypothesis construction: H o (p. 605) Logical, Value-neutral Asserts no difference between dependent and independent variables Alternative Hypothesis: H a (p. 145) Hypotheses and research questions

3. Operationalization  Can anything be operationalized?  “Those who get to ask the questions get to determine the context of answers.” Operationalization and social justice Avoiding bias (p. 152)  Simple and complex operationalizations “covering the construct”

4. Operationalization in Action  Try to operationalize these variables: Teen mother Elderly Male homosexual Person with dementia Drug-abusing adolescent Criminal

5. Operationalization in Action, cont.  Try to operationalize these variables Love Peace Anxiety Insomnia Attachment Cognitive-behavioral therapy

6. Levels of Measurement (p. 172)  Nominal  Ordinal  Interval  Ratio

7. Measurement Error  Random Error  Systematic Error

8. How We Collect Data  Direct self-report  Indirect self-report  Observation  Archival records

9. Two Principles in Reducing Measurement Error  Reliability Definition: gives the same answer over time and among different populations and circumstances Types of reliability  Interrater reliability  Test-retest reliability  Internal consistency reliability  Inter-item correlations (p. 187)

10. Two Principles in Reducing Measurement Error  Validity (p. 194) Definition: Measures what it means to measure Face validity Content validity Criterion-related validity  Concurrent validity  Predictive validity Construct validity

11. Validity and Reliability, final words  P. 198, for permutations  Valid, but not reliable  Reliable, but not valid  Valid and Reliable

12. Constructing Measurement Instruments  Why construct measurement instruments? “Covering the construct” Complex constructs, subtle constructs Convergent and discriminant validity  No-nos when constructing measurement instruments (pp. 208 – 212)  Tools: Likert scaling Semantic differential scaling (p. 226)

13. Single-Systems Design Experiment  Consider a behavior you want to extinguish or increase  Consider a reward and/or punishment