SOAN 2120 Study Guide - Operational Definition, Operationalization

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Sociology and Anthropology
• Course: SOAN 2120
• Professor: Scott Schau

Document Summary

The process of taking the fussy ideas and coming to agreement about the meaning. Is the process of specifying what we mean by a term. A clear, verbal specification of your variable (concept) so that others know what it is and van place cognitive borders around it. Is an abstract term referring to a group of phenomena that enable us to link separate observations and to make generalizations e. g. apathy, participation, liberalism etc. Concepts : abstract elements representing classes of phenomena. We need to be specific in our definitions for measuring. Conceptualization: the process of coming to an agreements about what concepts mean and represent with regard to social and physical reality. A sign of the presence or absence of the variable we are studying. We will discover disagreements in definitions of our concepts and indicators of these concepts. Stage when we decide how we will measure concepts within a study.