Journalism 614: Concept Explication

1. Journalism 614:Concept Explication

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. Processes of Concept Explication Meaning Analysis Observation Empirical Analysis

6. 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

7. Concepts, Dimensions, Indicators

8. Reconstructing Concept Definitions

9. Relationship Between Theory and Research

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. Thermometer scales

16. 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”

17. 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?”

18. 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?” • “What’s 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?”

19. 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

20. 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

21. Questionnaire Construction • Objective: • To develop a standardized instrument: • gathers reliable and valid information • To elicit a response: • accurately and completely reflects each respondent’s position or behavior • To help the interviewer: • motivate respondent to build and maintain “rapport”

22. 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”

23. Questionnaire Construction • Length: • :30 for telephone, longer for personal/self-administered • 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