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Psychology: What does operationalising mean?

Angel-x

Can some one please explain to me in the simplest terms what operationlising means?

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Reply 1

Twinkles

suppose you are trying to measure aggressiveness, you operationalise it by measuring the number of punches, amount of verbal abuse or how long they interact with others, if they interact at all

Reply 2

Angel-x

Ow alright, thankyou.

Reply 3

jabed786

operationalising is how can we text/measure a hypothesis or idea?
How can prove that white people are just as intelligent as black people.
How are we going to measure intelligence, using IQ tests or general knowledge quizes?
How are we going to get a good sample.

Reply 4

skotch

basically how you are going to measure your independent and dependent variables.

say you want to test how good a goalkeeper is, you operationalise the experiment by counting how many times they make a save.

twinkles' example is pretty good.

it is often an advantage of experiments if they are able to operationalise an abstract concept like feelings, attitudes, opinions etc.

Reply 5

Antifazian

I think of it simply as identifying your independent variables, and stating how you will measure your dependent variable.

Reply 6

grape:)

Applying a measurable way of counting your independent variable.

Reply 7

koliph15

Why is operationalising important?

Reply 8

Dillio

Original post by koliph15

Why is operationalising important?

It helps to establish cause and effect, one of the most important principles in scientific research. If you do not do this, you may be measuring a variable that is in fact not related to the independent variable.

It also helps with replicability. If another researcher reads your journal article and wants to test whether your results were obtained validly and reliably, they could implement the exact same methods rather than designing a whole new experiment with different measures and manipulations of the same variables.

(edited 11 years ago)

Thank you so much!

Original post by koliph15

Thank you so much!

Always glad to help.

Reply 11

Lindzy

This answer was so helpful

Reply 12

Pippypoopar

People expect operationalising to be overly complicated. It's not.
To put it simply, it means: Define your variables.
For Example:
Test: - How does sleep deprivation affect a participant's reflexes.
IV: - Define how long the participant has been deprived of sleep. E.g: 7 hours.
DV: - Define how you'd measure the participant's reflexes. E.g: How well they did on a reflexes test. And so on. ^_^ Hope this helps anyone in the future xD

Reply 13

mattellis1705

Turning a variable that cannot be quantified e.g. happiness into something that can be quantified e.g. a happiness scale (perhaps based on the amount of time people smile in an hour or something).

Reply 14

Davalla

Original post by mattellis1705

Turning a variable that cannot be quantified e.g. happiness into something that can be quantified e.g. a happiness scale (perhaps based on the amount of time people smile in an hour or something).

Ten months later than when the question was asked. :tongue:

Reply 15

Vangelis_Greece

it has to do with phenomena that cannot be observed and measured directly (latent variables) eg.to test your eyesight ability,there are scientific tools that 'measure' it.

Reply 16

tgwktm

operationalising a variable is making it measureable so it can become quantitative data such as the number of objects correctly recalled in a memory test