Psychology 2800E Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Celsius, Kelvin, Level Of Measurement

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2800E
• Professor: Doug Hazlewood

Document Summary

Concepts are words (can"t be directly observed; aka constructs; must be translated into things that can be observed) Operational definitions describe how concepts will be measured (or manipulated ) We"ll talk about manipulating concepts when we discuss experiments. Skim chapter 5 w&m discussion of independent, dependent, subject, & confounded variables (p. Skip nuts and bolts" (134-135); case in point & reading between the lines (137); and exercises. Measurement: using rules to assign values to variables. Variable: any observable attribute of a concept that has more than one value. Biological sex is a concept with observable attributes; with two basic values: male & female. An exam grade is a concept that has observable attributes; from 0%-100% correct. Part 2: types of variables: categorical variables (values identify distinct categories of things) Values can be names (e. g. , males, females) Values can be numbers (e. g. males assigned a value of 1 and females assigned a value of 2)