POL 3371 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Fallacy, Theoretical Definition, Social Liberalism
8 Apr 2014
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Chapter 1 definition and measurement of concepts: concept: an idea or mental construct that represents phenomena in the real world, simple: political participation, social status, complicated: power, democratization, globalization. Ex: liberalism the extent to which individuals support increased government spending for social programs: operational definition: described the instrument to be used in measuring the concept and putting a conceptual definition into operation. Ex: implementing the conceptual definition of liberalism craft a series of ten or twelve survey question and administer them to a large number of individuals. Each question would name a specific social program: funding for education, assistance to the poor, spending on medical care, etc. For each program, individuals would be asked whether government spending should be decreased, kept the same, or increased. Liberalism could then be operationally defined as the number of times a respondent said.
