CMST 354 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Theoretical Definition, Loaded Language, Operational Definition
Document Summary
Express patterns of expected activity: metatheories- ways we think about theories. Conceptual definition- uses other words to define a word. Has 3 levels: daily definitions- involve common meanings of terms. Statements generally adopted by members of a society: poetic definitions- involve exaggerated language. Operational definition- describes what is to be observed by specifying what researchers must do to make observations: promote precision, must be used with conceptual definitions, forms of operational definitions, manipulated independent variables- sometimes called. Split-half- divides a tests in two and checks their consistency. Inter-coder- determining consistency of different raters who respond between scores to same events by using a check sheet. Levels of measurement: nominal- use of numbers as identifications of variables, ordinal- rank order on some variable, ratio- interval level variable using 0. Reliability measures what we didn"t get, validity represents the degree to which a measure actually measures what is claimed: being reliable is producing the same results time after time.
