1. The Practice of Social Research
Chapter 5 – Conceptualization, Operationalization, and Measurement

2. Chapter Outline Measuring Anything That Exists Conceptualization
Definitions in Descriptive and Explanatory Studies
Operationalization Choices
Criteria of Measurement Quality
The Ethics of Measurement
Quick Quiz

3. Measuring Anything that Exists
Measurement – careful, deliberate observations of the real world for the purpose of describing objects and events in terms of the attributes composing the variable.

4. Measuring Anything that Exists
Measurement – Practice
Political Party Affiliation
Age
Grade Point Average
Satisfaction with College
Religious Affiliation

5. Measuring Anything that Exists
Conceptions, Concepts, and Reality
Practice: Prejudice
Conceptualization – the mental process whereby fuzzy and imprecise notions (concepts) are made more specific and precise.

6. Measuring Anything that Exists
Concepts as Constructs
Concepts are constructs derived by mutual agreement from mental images.
Conceptions summarize collections of seemingly related observations and experiences.

7. Conceptualization
The process through which we specify what we mean when we use particular terms in research.
We cannot meaningfully answer a question without a working agreement about the meaning of the outcome.
Conceptualization processes a specific, agreed-upon meaning for a concept for the purposes of research.

8. Conceptualization Indicators and Dimensions
Indicator – an observation that we choose to consider as a reflection of a variable we wish to study.
Dimension – a specifiable aspect of a concept.

9. Conceptualization Indicators and Dimensions – Practice
Religious Affiliation
College Success
Political Activity
Poverty
Binge Drinking
Fear of Crime

10. Conceptualization The Interchangeability of Indicators
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.

11. Conceptualization Real, Nominal, and Operational Definitions
Specification – the process through which concepts are made more specific.
A nominal definition is one that is simply assigned to a term without any claim that the definition represents a “real” entity.
An operational definition specifies precisely how a concept will be measured – that is, the operations we will perform.

12. Conceptualization Creating Conceptual Order Conceptualization
Nominal Definition
Operational Definition
Real World Measurement

13. Conceptualization
Conceptualization – Practice
Anomie

14. Definitions in Descriptive and Explanatory Studies
Definitions are more problematic for descriptive research than for explanatory research.

15. Operationalization Choices
Conceptualization is the refinement and specification of abstract concepts.
Operationalization is the development of specific research procedures that will result in empirical observations representing those concepts in the real world.

16. Operationalization Choices
Range of Variation
To what extent is the research willing to combine attributes in fairly gross categories?
Variation between the Extremes
To what degree is the operationalization of variables precise?
A Note on Dimensions

17. Operationalization Choices
Defining Variables and Attributes
An attribute is a characteristic or quality of something (ex: female, old, student).
A variable is a logical set of attributes (ex: gender, age).
Every variable must have two important qualities.
The attributes composing it should be exhaustive.
Attributes must be mutually exclusive.

18. Operationalization Choices
Levels of Measurement
Nominal
Ordinal
Interval
Ratio

19. Operationalization Choices
Levels of Measurement – Nominal
Variables whose attributes have only the characteristics of exhaustiveness and mutually exclusiveness.
Examples: gender, religious affiliation, college major, hair color, birthplace, nationality

20. Operationalization Choices
Levels of Measurement – Ordinal
Variables with attributes we can logically rank in order.
Examples: socioeconomic status, level of conflict, prejudice, conservativeness, hardness

21. Operationalization Choices
Levels of Measurement – Interval
Variables for which the actual distance between attributes has meaning.
Examples: temperature (Fahrenheit), IQ score

22. Operationalization Choices
Levels of Measurement – Ratio
Variables whose attributes meet the requirements of an interval measure, and has a true zero point.
Examples: temperature (Kelvin), age, length of time, number of organizations, number of groups, number of As received in college

23. Operationalization Choices
Implications of Levels of Measurement
Analyses require minimum levels of measurement
Some variables can be treated as multiple levels of measurement

24. Operationalization Choices
Single or Multiple Indicators

25. Criteria of Measurement Quality
Precision and Accuracy
Reliability
Validity

26. Criteria of Measurement Quality
Precision and Accuracy
Precise measures are superior to imprecise ones.
Precision is not the same as accuracy.

27. Criteria of Measurement Quality
Reliability – the quality of measurement method that suggests the same data would have been collected each time in repeated observations of the same phenomenon.
Reliability is not the same as accuracy.

28. Criteria of Measurement Quality
Test-Retest Method
To make the same measurement more than once.
Split-Half Method
Multiple sets of randomly assigned variables should produce the same classifications
Established Measures
Reliability of Research Workers

29. Criteria of Measurement Quality
Validity – a term describing a measure that accurately reflects the concept it is intended to measure.
Face Validity – the quality of an indicator that makes it a reasonable measure of some variable.
Criterion-Related Validity – the degree to which a measure relates to some external criterion.
Construct Validity – the degree to which a measure relates to other variables as expected within a system of theoretical relationships.
Content Validity – the degree to which a measure covers the range of meanings included within a concept.

30. Quick Quiz

31. Chapter 5 Quiz
1. The mental processes whereby fuzzy and imprecise notions are made more specific and precise is called
construction.
reification.
conceptualization
operationalization.

32. Chapter 5 Quiz
Answer: C. The mental processes whereby fuzzy and imprecise notions are made more specific and precise is called conceptualization.

33. Chapter 5 Quiz
2. Which of the following are examples of nominal measures?
gender
religious affiliation
political party affiliation
birthplace
all of the above

34. Chapter 5 Quiz
Answer: E. Gender, religious affiliation, political affiliation, and birthplace are all examples of nominal measures.

35. Chapter 5 Quiz
3. _____ is the degree to which a measure covers the range of meanings included within a concept.
Construct validity
Criterion-related validity
Face validity
Content validity

36. Chapter 5 Quiz
Answer: D. Content validity is the degree to which a measure covers the range of meanings included within a concept.

37. Chapter 5 Quiz
4. In social research, the process of coming to an agreement about what terms mean is
hypothesizing.
conceptualization.
variable naming.
operationalization.

38. Chapter 5 Quiz
Answer: B. In social research, the process of coming to an agreement about what terms mean is conceptualization.

39. Chapter 5 Quiz
5. The _____ of concepts in scientific inquiry depends on nominal and operational definitions.
specification
interchangeability
functioning
network

40. Chapter 5 Quiz
Answer: A. The specification of concepts in scientific inquiry depends on nominal and operational definitions.

41. Chapter 5 Quiz
6. A level of measurement describing a variable whose attributes are rank-ordered and have equal distances between adjacent attributes are _____ measures.
ratio
interval
nominal
ordinal

42. Chapter 5 Quiz
Answer: B. A level of measurement describing a variable whose attributes are rank-ordered and have equal distances between adjacent attributes are interval measures