Operationalizing Concepts Issues in operationally defining your concepts

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

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

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

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

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

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

Measurement Error Random Error p Systematic Error p

How We Collect Data Direct self-report p Indirect self-report p Observation p Archival records p

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

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

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

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

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