PSYC104 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Confounding, Content Validity, Dependent And Independent Variables

• School: Macquarie University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC104
• Professor: Colin Wastell

Document Summary

Research design lecture 5 measurement & sampling. Social scientists such as psychologists are interested in concepts such as: social class. These do not have physical existence and therefore need to be operationalized so that they can be measure. Measu(cid:396)e(cid:373)e(cid:374)t (cid:862)can be defined as a process through which researchers describe, e(cid:454)plai(cid:374) a(cid:374)d predi(cid:272)t the phe(cid:374)o(cid:373)e(cid:374)a a(cid:374)d (cid:272)o(cid:374)stru(cid:272)ts of our dail(cid:455) e(cid:454)iste(cid:374)(cid:272)e(cid:863) (marczyk et al, 2005, p95) All social research is about the relationship between the physical world of people that can be captured through measurable data and the meanings that people attach to those concepts of interest [see loseke (2012) p35]. Conceptualization: (cid:862)conceptualization is the process of translating imprecise and ambiguous ideas into pre(cid:272)ise a(cid:374)d (cid:272)learl(cid:455) defi(cid:374)ed (cid:272)o(cid:374)(cid:272)epts(cid:863) [loseke, 2012, p66] Thus, one of the most important steps in any research activity is the clear identification of key concepts so that they can be operationalized. The key concepts must accurately represent the elements of the research question.