CRIM 220 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Blood Alcohol Content, Empirical Measure, Judiciary Of Australia
7 Jun 2018
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Lecture 4, Week 4: Chapter 5 Tuesday, 30th January
Crim 220 Chapter 5: Concepts, Operationalization, and
Measurement
•Criminal research seeks to communicate findings to an audience
Conceptions and Concepts
• No direct way to communicate mental images
•Concepts are used to communicate conceptions (Example: gender, punishment,
chivalry, etc.)
•Concepts are abstract (independent of the labels we assign to them)
•Disagreement of conception as different people live different experiences
•Three classes of things scientists measure: direct observables, indirect observables,
and constructs
Direct observables: things or qualities observed directly (e.g. color)
Indirect observables: require more complex or indirect observations
(e.g. reports, court transcripts, criminal record history, etc.)
Constructs: theoretical creations (not observed directly or indirectly)
Conceptualization
•The process by which it is specified precisely what is meant when a particular term is
used
Example: Violent crime = offender uses force (or threatens to use force) against a victim
Indicators and Dimensions
•Good crime indicator of crime seriousness: harm to crime victim (e.g. physical,
emotional, etc.)
•Possible to divide concepts of crime seriousness into different dimensions
•Specification leads to deeper understanding
Creating Conceptual Order
•Scientists have distinguished between three types of definitions:
real
conceptual
operational
• ‘Real’ or ‘essential nature’ definition is inherently subjective
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Conceptions- subjective thought about things that we encounter in daily life.
Concepts- words or symbols that are used to represent/communicate mental
images.
Dimension- technical term for groupings. Specifiable aspect of a concept.
Reification- process of regarding as real, things that are not real.
• The specification of concepts relies on conceptual and operational definitions
• Conceptual definition
Gives clear understanding of what is meant by the concept
Focuses on observational strategy
Operationalization Choices
• Moves us closer to measurement
• Operationalization usually does not proceed in a systematic checklist manner
• Various prior decisions must be taken before actually collecting the measurements
Measurement as “Scoring”
• Operationalization involves describing how actual measurements will be made
• Measurement is distinct from operationalization
• It involves making observations and assigning scores (numbers or other labels) to
those observations
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Real definition- statement of the the ‘essential beauty’ or ‘essential attributes’
of some entity
Conceptual definition- working definition of a concept or a term
Operational definition- statement specifying what operations should be
performed to measure a concept
Conceptualization
Conceptual Definition
Operational Definition
Measurements in the Real World
Measurement- process of assigning numbers or labels to units of analysis in
order to represent conceptual properties.
Operationalization- the process of developing operational definitions
Document Summary
Tuesday, 30th january: criminal research seeks to communicate findings to an audience. Conceptions and concepts: no direct way to communicate mental images, concepts are used to communicate conceptions (example: gender, punishment, chivalry, etc. ) Conceptions- subjective thought about things that we encounter in daily life. Direct observables: things or qualities observed directly (e. g. color) Indirect observables: require more complex or indirect observations (e. g. reports, court transcripts, criminal record history, etc. ) Constructs: theoretical creations (not observed directly or indirectly) Conceptualization: the process by which it is specified precisely what is meant when a particular term is used. Example: violent crime = offender uses force (or threatens to use force) against a victim. Indicators and dimensions: good crime indicator of crime seriousness: harm to crime victim (e. g. physical, emotional, etc. , possible to divide concepts of crime seriousness into different dimensions. Reification- process of regarding as real, things that are not real: specification leads to deeper understanding.
