Measurement

Question 1

What is an observation?

Answer 1

A conscious awareness(however fuzzy or vague) of something

Question 2

Give examples of vague and less vague observations

Answer 2

Vague

• I have a feeling about this guy
• i sense something in the room
• Ah. Feeling “ah how”

Less vague:

• the sky is above me
• rain falls in June
• ah feeling happy

Question 3

What is Measuring?

Answer 3

Ascribing a value or worth to an observation
-that value may be quantitative or qualitative

Quantitative measures: 6ft, 10 million dollars, 3.56 GPA

Qualitative:adequate, tall, sweet, yellow

Question 4

What is quantifying?

Answer 4

Ascribing a numeric value to an observation

-she is 6 ft. Tall

Question 5

To adequately measure a concept…

Answer 5

It must be converted to a variable

Question 6

What is an attribute?

Answer 6

Attributes are the quantities (properties, features, traits, characteristics, values, etc.,) we ascribe to the things we observe or perceive (hence attribution).

Attributes may be perceived at varying levels of clarity:
Ah feeling “ah how”

Ah feeling (funny)

Ah feeling (nauseous)

Every meaningful idea has atleast one attribute

To say that something is meaningful to you is to say that you have given it an attribute

Question 7

What is a category?

Answer 7

A category is a label given to a set of objects assumed to share some thing(s) in common

The labeler may not yet know exactly what the objects she has grouped together have in common, but she is fairly convinced that they do share common features

“The set of items to my right” and “the bundle labelled X” are two examples of ill defined categories

Question 8

What is a concept?

Answer 8

These are categories that are imbuedwith meaning. I.e., we begin to populate the categories with attributes, however vague or clear those attributes may be

For instance, the category, set of items to my right, may be converted to a concept by calling it “markers” note: unlike “set of items to my right”, the term “markers” is already imbued with some meaning; some attribute.

What are some attributes of markers?

Question 9

What is conceptualization ?

Answer 9

The process of clarifying and enriching the meaning of a term. We do so, in part, by populating it with specific attributes

Question 10

What is a variable?

Answer 10

Concepts are converted into variables by organizing them into a set of empirically observable attributes.

A variable is a concept compromising a set of specified (known), empirically observable attributes

Question 11

What are the 3 criteria for defining variables?

Answer 11

1. A variable possesses at least two attributes
2. The attributes making up a variable are specified (known)
3. The attributes making up a variable are empirically observable

Question 12

Contrast a concept and variable

Answer 12

“Student achievement “ is a concept, it’s attributes are unspecified

“Grade point average “ is a variable. It’s attributes are specified and empirically observable (e.g.,0-4)

Question 13

Describe the relationship between observations, categories, concepts, variables and attributes

Answer 13

Observations contain all categories

Categories contain all concepts

Concepts contain all variables and attributes

Question 14

What are the functions of variables ?

Answer 14

Variables are not naturally occurring- we invent them

We invent them to do two things:

1. Measure our concepts
2. Specify relationships between and among concepts

We focus, first, on measuring our concepts

Question 15

What are the four levels of measurement?

Answer 15

Nominal

Ordinal

Interval

Ratio

Remember: NOIR

Question 16

What are nominal measures?

Answer 16

• with nominal measures the attributes differ in kind (or name) only.
• Some nominal measures have only two attributes, e.g., the variable SEX, typically has only two attributes: man and woman

Question 17

What is a dichotomous measure?

Answer 17

-Nominal measures with only two attributes are reffered to as dichotomous measures

Sex
Man
Woman

Question 18

What is a categorical measure?

Answer 18

Nominal measure with more than two attributes are referred to as categorical measures; e.g., the variable GENDER has several attributes: male, female, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and so on

E.g. homocide(categorical)

Manslaughter
Legal homocides
Myrder