Summary Research Methods: Unit 5 - Conceptualization

Unit 5: Conceptualization, constructs as combinations of facets
Facets= dimensions or traits

Concept and constructs

Many concepts are simple.

• How much money is in your bank
• How much energy a windmill produces

Examples of constructs (relationships between facets)

• And: Bachelor -> Dichotomy
• Not: Gender -> typology
• Or: Democracy -> dichotomies or indices (ordinal/scale)
• Missing: Personality

Relation concepts to observations

Concepts / constructs / term: this is the deductive way

• We identify facets of these constructs
• The indicators we find measuring the constructs
• The indicators are used in the measurement procedure (observations)

The inductive way

• Starting with observations
• Arriving at the construct at the end


Everyone uses constructs

- Violence, personality
- Constructs can refer to units and variables
• For example: State


A bachelor

- Bachelor is a variable characterizing people
- Conceptualize: People are or are not bachelors
- Dichotomy




The facets of the variable:

, The relationship between facets and terms (conceptualization using AND)

Term: being a bachelor or not

• Married or not
• Over 18 or not
• Male or not

AND: a set of necessary and sufficient conditions

- If we miss information about one of the facets we cannot tell
- If we have information about the three facets, we can tell



Gender as a dichotomy

Meanings of Sex/gender

Term: Male or female

Variables

• XX or XY chromosome
• Characteristics at birth
• Category in passport

Typology is a way to categorize four examples instead of two
➔ Operationalization is for example: man, woman and ‘other’



Democracy

Underlying facets:

• Rule or law
• Popular elections
OR (only sufficient conditions) dichotomy (family resemblance)



Missing: just a set of somehow related variables

Example: personality

Personality is a set of variables and not combined in any way