2.1 Key Concepts in Research

Question 1

What is a conceptual definition?

Answer 1

The theoretical meaning of a concept

Question 2

What is an operational definition?

Answer 2

Specifies what the researcher must do to measure the concept and collected needed information.

Question 3

What is grounded theory? Who developed it?

Answer 3

Glaser and Strauss (1960)
Seeks to describe and understand key points of psychological processes and generate explanations that are grounded in reality.
Major component is the discovery of a core variable that is central to explaining what is going on in a social scene.

Question 4

What is phenomenology?

Answer 4

An approach to thinking about people’s life experiences and what they mean.

Question 5

What is ethnography?

Answer 5

A methodology that provides framework for studying patterns and lifeways of a defined cultural group in a holistic fashion.

Question 6

What are the five major steps in a quantitative study?

Answer 6

1. conceptual phase
2. design and planning
3. the empirical phase
4. the analytical phase
5. the dissemination phase