Seminar 1 Flashcards
Definitions consists of two parts, which?
A term to be defined (definiendum) and a description (definiens) that provides the definition.
A definition can have two different kinds of explanations, describe those two and give example.
Stipulative and lexical. The lexical definition provides the standard or most common meaning of the word. While the stipulative definition introduces a new meaning for an existing term, not necessarily true or false.
Ex. the definition of the word “apple”.
A lexical definition could be “An apple is a round fruit with red, green or yellow skin produced by the apple tree”. This definition is the most common definition, taken from a dictionary.
A Stipulative definition could be “any red object that players can collect for points.”, here we are using a new meaning apple, as any red item in a game. And the definition is only for the game.
What is a balanced definition?
The goal with a definition is to find a balance between a definition that is not too narrow or too broad, so it could describe exactly what we mean. Let’s take a chair as an example.
A too narrow definition is: “A piece of furniture with a seat, with four legs, and a backrest, intended for one person to sit on.” This definition is too limited as not all chairs have exactly four legs or a backrest.
A too wide definition: “A piece of furniture that one can sit on.” This definition may include other seating furniture as sofas, benches and stools.
An appropriate definition could be: “A seating furniture, often with a backrest, intended for one person to sit on.” This definition captures the key characteristics of a chair without including too much or too little.
Describe vagueness
Has the lack of a precise definition in language, where the boundaries of a term are not clearly defined. This often leads to uncertainty about what exactly falls under a particular term. A not vague term is example “biological siblings”, “a triangle or square”, we have clear definitions of all these three terms.
What is operationalization?
Make the measurement of indirect observations. The purpose of operationalization is to transform theoretical (often complex and difficult to define ideas) or difficult to measure characteristics into measurable ones through indirect observations.
What is abstract concepts?
Abstract concepts such as ‘happiness’, ‘stress’ or ‘intelligence’ do not have a direct, simple method of measurement.
Describe the steps in quality criteria for operationalization
- Define what the property of interest is. What do we mean by happiness, an emotional state, a judgment or number of physical properties?
- We need to have a valid relationship between property and effect.
- Ensure that there are not too many distributing factors involved
- We should pick a property that actually is directly observable with sufficient precision.
Describe accuracy and precision
Accuracy- is how close a measured value is to the true or accepted value of what is being measured. Exemple if the true length of an object is 10 cm, and a measurement gives a result of 9.9cm, the measurement is highly accurate because it is very close to the true value.
Precision - refers to the consistency or repeatability of measurements. If multiple measurements yield similar or have identical results, they are considered precise, regardless of whether they are close to the true value. Exemple if you measure the length of an object several times and get values like 10.2 cm, 10.2 cm and 10.3 cm, your measurements are precise because they are close to each other, even if they are slightly off from the actual length of 10 cm.
What is systematic and random error?
Systematic error - Error caused by specific factors that disturb the measurement process, like if someone is using a mis-calibrated scale. Leads to wrong results in all measurements and systematic errors lead to high precision but low accuracy.
Random error - Caused by factors that vary and cannot be controlled or particularly will not be controlled, this is due to unpredictable factors. Which leads to that the measurements are around the true value, more accuracy and less precision. Example minor variation if you are measuring the weight of the same object of 100g multiple times and get 99.8g, 100.1g and 100g.
