You predict a relationship between these variables, and state it as a null and alternate hypothesis. Hypothesis exampleBased on your literature review, you choose to measure the variables quality of sleep and night-time social media use. This will highlight any gaps in the existing literature that your research study can fill. To decide on which variables to use, review previous studies to identify the most relevant or underused variables. Your main concepts may each have many variables, or properties, that you can measure.įor instance, are you going to measure the amount of sleep or the quality of sleep? And are you going to measure how often teenagers use social media, which social media they use, or when they use it? Concept Choose a variable to represent each of the concepts. There are two main concepts in your research question:Ģ. Research question exampleIs there a relation between sleep and social media behavior in teenagers?
Identify the main concepts you are interested in studying.īased on your research interests and goals, define your topic and come up with an initial research question.
#Activity theory of aging pros and cons how to
Proofread my paper How to operationalize concepts
If your results don’t vary when you use different measures, then they are said to be “robust.” If you test a hypothesis using multiple operationalizations of a concept, you can check whether your results depend on the type of measure that you use. Records of products purchased by repeat customers in a three-month period.Customer ratings on a questionnaire assessing satisfaction and intention to purchase again.Participants’ reaction times after being presented with threatening images.Physiological responses of higher sweat gland activity and increased heart rate when presented with threatening images.Average ratings of the originality of uses of an object that participants come up with in 3 minutes.The number of uses for an object (e.g., a paperclip) that participants can come up with in 3 minutes.The difference between where people rank themselves compared to others and where they actually rank ( overplacement).The difference between how well people think they did on a test and how well they actually did ( overestimation).These differences mean that you may actually measure slightly different aspects of a concept, so it’s important to be specific about what you are measuring. Generally, abstract concepts can be operationalized in many different ways. This means that your results are context-specific, and may not generalize to different real-life settings. For example, an experimental intervention for social anxiety may reduce self-rating anxiety scores but not behavioral avoidance of crowded places. Your choice of operational definition can sometimes affect your results. Operationalization reduces subjectivity, minimizes the potential for research bias, and increases the reliability of your study. Without transparent and specific operational definitions, researchers may measure irrelevant concepts or inconsistently apply methods.
In quantitative research, it’s important to precisely define the types of variables that you want to study. Frequently asked questions about operationalization.
0 kommentar(er)
