Measurement of Concepts

One of the biggest problems that political scientists, and social scientists in general, face is the question of how to measure, or operationalize, a concept. A concept is a broad understanding of the idea(s) that a researcher wishes to study. The problem lies in the fact that most of the concepts that social scientists are based on human and social behaviors. The researcher's task then becomes how to accurately quantify behaviors so that they can analyze a relationship between concepts statistically.

Most concepts have multiple ways of being operationalized. For instance, consider the concept of the health of a nation's economy. How should this concept be measured? Many people would say that a nation's economic health can be measured by its GDP, while others would say that the unemployment rate is a better measure. Others would argue that we should look at the inflation rate or trade balance, so which one is right? Actually, they can all be appropriate ways of operationalizing the concept.

All quantified measures of concepts are known as indicators. In this course you will be making comparisons of concepts using indicators in supplied data sets. When you do the research paper you will create your hypothesis from a concept and then use one of these indicators to represent that concept. You will have to explain why you chose the indicator you did.

Since there are multiple ways of operationalizing a concept, most studies make use of many indicators. Testing with multiple indicators can provide consensus on a hypothesis. Furthermore, if the results differ with different indicators, it tells you to rethink the indicators and whether they are properly operationalized.

Operalization of concepts is maybe the single most important step in social research. If it is not done properly, the whole study is thrown off.
-Randy Owen