Journalism 614: Concept Explication

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Journalism 614Concept Explication
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Research Concepts

• What do we mean when we want to study
• Prejudice?, Participation?, or Patriotism?
• Research concepts
• Labels given to
• Objects and ideas
• Basic functions of concepts
• Organize our everyday experiences
• Facilitate communication with others
• Research functions of concepts
• Classification
• Comparison
• Require careful explicit definitions
• Conceptual
• Operational

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Desirable Concept Qualities

• Abstractness
• applies to more than one case
• Clarity
• label conveys the meaning of the concept
• Operationalizability
• translates into observation
• Precision
• Exact, consistent, and reproducible

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Concept Explication

• The process by which abstract concepts are
  systematically linked to observed variations in
  those concepts in the real world
• Conceptual definitions
• Essential properties the researcher intends to be
  included within the concepts meaning
• Operational definitions
• Procedures by which the concept is to be
  observed, measures, or manipulated

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Processes of Concept Explication
Meaning Analysis
Observation
Empirical Analysis
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Meaning Analysis

• Logical procedures are used to
• define concepts clearly
• connect conceptual and operational definitions
• Stages
• Preliminary identification of concept
• Literature review
• Empirical description
• Define conceptually
• Define operationally
• Data gathering

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Concepts, Dimensions, Indicators
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Reconstructing Concept Definitions
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Relationship Between Theory and Research
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Measuring Concepts Operationalization

• Simple concepts
• Can be measured with single items
• E.g., gender, age
• Complex concepts have many dimensions
• Necessitating multiple items
• Items get combined in indexes or scales
• E.g., SES, Racism

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Value of Using Multiple Items

• 1. Capturing various dimensions
• Representing the complexity of the concept
• Capturing range, depth and complexity of an
  opinion
• 2. Creating a more sensitive measure
• 3. Scales reduce complex info from multiple items
• 4. Assessing reliability of items
• Items measuring the same concept should be
  correlated

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Likert items

• Likert scale items
• Statements with range of responses
• Strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree,
  strongly disagree
• Alternative
• Averaging responses across multiple items
• I am interested in politics
• Elections are fascinating
• Strength and direction of opinions
• Can be used to compare
• People
• Items

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Semantic differential items

• Paired antonyms
• Fast vs. slow, good vs. bad
• Subjects allowed to indicate gradations on
  continuum
• Scales from matched pairs of antonyms
• Brave vs. Cowardly, Unafraid vs. Afraid

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Forced choice alternatives

• Useful when agreement is high due to social
  desirability
• Which would you prefer, hiring more teachers or
  police officers?
• Measures whether education or crime is seen as a
  more important issue
• People often agree with both forced to choose

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Thermometer scales
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Open-ended vs. Closed-ended

• Open
• E.g., What is the most important reason you watch
  reality shows?_____________________
• Closed
• E.g., On a five-point scale, how much do you
  agree or disagree with the following statements
• I watch reality shows to escape daily stress
• I watch reality shows to bond with my friends
• I watch reality shows to learn about life

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Problematic questions

• Social desirability
• On a scale from 1 to 10, how comfortable are you
  working with people from other ethnic
  backgrounds?
• Pseudo-opinions
• Do you agree with U.S. policy in the Balkans?
• Hypothetical questions lack valid answers
• If you won the lottery, would you quit your
  job?
• Leading questions
• Should the government increase funding for
  education in order to improve our schools?

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More problematic questions

• Double-barreled questions
• Do you favor building new schools and increasing
  money for teachers?
• Question-ordering
• Have you been a victim of a crime in the last
  year?
• Whats the most important problem facing the
  country?
• Questions requiring difficult mental calculus
• On the average, how many minutes per day do you
  spend composing email messages?

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Interviewing

• Training interviewers how to accurately collect
  data and complete a survey
• Two parts
• (1) preparing for basics of interviewing and
• (2) learning the specific interview questionnaire
• Best learned through experience
• A mutual exchange between interviewer/interviewee

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Interviewing Skills

• Interviewing is an communication skill
• Interviewing is a learned skill
• Read interviewing instructions
• Read and listen to instructions
• Practice with someone else
• Be positive and confident
• Edit each interview immediately afterwards

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Questionnaire Construction

• Objective
• To develop a standardized instrument
• gathers reliable and valid information
• To elicit a response
• accurately and completely reflects each
  respondents position or behavior
• To help the interviewer
• motivate respondent to build and maintain
  rapport

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Question Wording

• Language Need to approximate general parlance
• Must communicate with least sophisticated without
  appearing over-simplified to most sophisticated
• Frame of reference Words have multiple meanings
• Words like news can mean many things
• Information level Complexity of language
• Confusing terms and technical language - Ex.
  Cookies
• Skewed phrasing Biases response in a direction
• Ex. Feed the starving homeless women and
  children

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Questionnaire Construction

• Length
• 30 for telephone, longer for personal/self-admini
  stered
• Ordering
• Put easy questions first, funnel toward specific
• Save sensitive question for later
• Transitions
• Ease them from one section to another
• Probes
• Encouragement, Explanation, Emphasis, Instruction