POLI SCI 170 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Operational Definition, Internal Consistency, Operationalization
9 Feb 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
4 hurdles to establishing causality: is there a correlation between x and y, can we rule out reverse causation, is there a credible causal mechanism, have we controlled for all confounding variables. Measurements: how to turn concepts into observable variables. Measurement: process of assigning numbers f levels to units of analysis (people, object, events, etc. ) to represent their conceptual properties. Goal: find valid and reliable observable concepts (e. g. iv, dv) Concepts: iv: voter id laws, dv: turnout. Conceptualization is sometimes easy: voter id law: any kind of identification that a person is required to show in order to vote, voter turnout: the rate of voting in an electoral unit. Often conceptualization involves a subjective and normative element. They key is to be clear about what the concept is: it can help to break the concept down into detailed sub-dimensions/checklist. Process of identifying empirical indicators and procedures for applying them to measure a concept.
