VARIABLE AND OPERATIONAL DEFINITIONS

VARIABLES

A variable, as opposed to a constant, is simply anything that can vary. If we were to study the

effects of work experience on college performance, we might look at the grades of students who

have worked prior to starting college and the grades of students who did not work prior to

starting college. In this study, you may notice that both groups are students so student status

remains constant between the two groups. You may also notice that work experience is not the

same between the two groups, therefore work experience varies and is considered a variable. If

we choose students for each group who are of similar age or similar background, we are holding

these aspects constant and therefore, they too will not vary within our study.

Every experiment has at least two types of variables: independent and dependent. The

independent variable (IV) is often thought of as our input variable. It is independent of

everything that occurs during the experiment because once it is chosen it does not change. In our

experiment on college performance, we chose two groups at the onset, namely, those with work

experience and those without. This variable makes up our two independent groups and is

therefore called the independent variable.

A variable is anything that can vary, i.e. changed or be changed, such as memory, attention, time

taken to perform a task, etc. Variable are given a special name that only applies to experimental

investigations.

In an experiment, the researcher is looking for the possible effect on the dependent variable that

might be caused by changing the independent variable.

to group, person to person, or even within one person over time. There are six common variable

types:

DEPENDENT VARIABLES

Show the effect of manipulating or introducing the independent variables. For example, if the

independent variable is the use or non-use of a new language teaching procedure, then the

dependent variable might be students' scores on a test of the content taught using that procedure.

In other words, the variation in the dependent variable depends on the variation in the

independent variable.

INDEPENDENT VARIABLES

The variables that the researcher has control over. This "control" may involve manipulating

existing variables (e.g., modifying existing methods of instruction) or introducing new variables

(e.g., adopting a totally new method for some sections of a class) in the research setting.

Whatever the case may be, the researcher expects that the independent variable(s) will have

some effect on (or relationship with) the dependent variables.

INTERVENING VARIABLES

Refer to abstract processes that are not directly observable but that link the independent and

dependent variables. In language learning and teaching, they are usually inside the subjects'

heads, including various language learning processes which the researcher cannot observe. For

example, if the use of a particular teaching technique is the independent variable and mastery of
the objectives is the dependent variable, then the language learning processes used by the

subjects are the intervening variables.

MODERATOR VARIABLES

Affect the relationship between the independent and dependent variables by modifying the effect

of the intervening variable(s). Unlike extraneous variables, moderator variables are measured

and taken into consideration. Typical moderator variables in TESL and language acquisition

research (when they are not the major focus of the study) include the sex, age, culture, or

language proficiency of the subjects.

CONTROL VARIABLES

Language learning and teaching are very complex processes. It is not possible to consider every

variable in a single study. Therefore, the variables that are not measured in a particular study

must be held constant, neutralized/balanced, or eliminated, so they will not have a biasing effect

on the other variables. Variables that have been controlled in this way are called control

variables.

EXTRANEOUS VARIABLES

Those factors in the research environment which may have an effect on the dependent variable(s)

but which is not controlled. Extraneous variables are dangerous. They may damage a study's

validity, making it impossible to know whether the effects were caused by the independent and

moderator variables or some extraneous factor. If they cannot be controlled, extraneous variables

must at least be taken into consideration when interpreting results.

There are four types of extraneous variables:

These are aspects of the environment that might affect the participant’s behavior, e.g. noise,

temperature, lighting conditions, etc. Situational variables should be controlled so they are the

same for all participants.

Standardized procedures are used to ensure that conditions are the same for all participants. This

includes the use of standardized instructions

2. Participant / Person Variable

This refers to the ways in which each participant varies from the other, and how this could affect

the results e.g. mood, intelligence, anxiety, nerves, concentration etc.

For example, if a participant that has performed a memory test was tired, dyslexic or had poor

eyesight, this could affect their performance and the results of the experiment. The experimental

design chosen can have an effect on participant variables.

Situational variables also include order effects that can be controlled using counterbalancing,

such as giving half the participants condition 'A' first, while the other half get condition 'B' first.

This prevents improvement due to practice, or poorer performance due to boredom.

Participant variables can be controlled using random allocation to the conditions of the

independent variable.

3. Experimenter / Investigator Effects

The experimenter unconsciously conveys to participants how they should behave - this is called

experimenter bias.
The experiment might do this by giving unintentional clues to the participants about what the

experiment is about and how they expect them to behave. This affects the participants’ behavior.

The experimenter is often totally unaware of the influence which s/he is exerting and the cues

may be very subtle but they may have an influence nevertheless.

Also, the personal attributes (e.g. age, gender, accent, manner etc.) of the experiment can affect

the behaviour of the participants.

4. Demand Characteristics

These are all the clues in an experiment which convey to the participant the purpose of the

research.

Participants will be affected by: (i) their surroundings; (ii) the researcher’s characteristics; (iii)

the researcher’s behavior (e.g. non-verbal communication), and (iv) their interpretation of what

is going on in the situation.

Experimenters should attempt to minimize these factors by keeping the environment as natural as

possible, carefully following standardized procedures. Finally, perhaps different experimenters

should be used to see if they obtain similar results.

It is very important in psychological research to clearly define what you mean by both your IV

and DV.

Operational variables (or operationalizing definitions) refer to how you will define and

measure a specific variable as it is used in your study.

For example, if we are concerned with the effect of media violence on aggression, then we need

to be very clear what we mean by the different terms. In this case, we must state what we mean

by the terms “media violence” and “aggression” as we will study them.

Therefore, you could state that “media violence” is operationally defined (in your experiment) as

‘exposure to a 15 minute film showing scenes of physical assault’; “aggression” is operationally

defined as ‘levels of electrical shocks administered to a second ‘participant’ in another room’.

In another example, the hypothesis “Young participants will have significantly better memories

than older participants” is not operationalized. How do we define "young", “old” or "memory"?

"Participants aged between 16 - 30 will recall significantly more nouns from a list if twenty than

participants aged between 55 - 70" is operationalized.

The key point here is that we have made it absolutely clear what we mean by the terms as they

were studied and measured in our experiment. If we didn’t do this then it would be very difficult

(if not impossible) to compare the findings of different studies into the same behavior.

Operationalization has the great advantage that it generally provides a clear and objective

definition of even complex variables. It also makes it easier for other researchers to replicate a

study and check for reliability.

Introduction

A concept expresses an abstraction by generalisation from particulars. A construct is a concept.

But construct has the added meaning, however, of having been deliberately and consciously

invented or adopted for a scientific purpose. An operational definition assigns meaning to a

construct or a variable by specifying the activities or "operations" necessary to measure it. There

are in general, two kinds of "operational definition" in research studies:

(i) Measured operational definition; A measured operational definition describes how a

variable will be measured.

(ii) Experimental operational definition; An experimental operational definition spells out the

details (operations) of the investigator's manipulation of variable.

No operational definition can ever express the rich and diverse aspects of human prejudice

(Kerlinger, 1995).

Operational Definition of Variables

Every good psychology study contains an operational definition for the variables in the research.

An operational definition allows the researchers to describe in a specific way what they mean

when they use a certain term. Generally, operational definitions are concrete and measurable.

Defining variables in this way allows other people to see if the research has validity. Validity

here refers to if the researchers are actually measuring what they intended to measure.

Definition: An operational definition is the statement of procedures the researcher is going to use

in order to measure a specific variable.

talking about when they refer to something. There might be different definitions of words

depending on the context in which the word is used. Think about how words mean something

different to people from different cultures. To avoid any confusion about definitions, in research

we explain clearly what we mean when we use a certain term.

Operational Definition Examples

Example One:

A researcher wants to measure if age is related to addiction. Perhaps their hypothesis is: the

incidence of addiction will increase with age. Here we have two variables, age and addiction. In

order to make the research as clear as possible, the researcher must define how they will measure

these variables. Essentially, how do we measure someone’s age and how to we measure

addiction?

Variable One: Age might seem straightforward. You might be wondering why we need to define

age if we all know what age is. However, one researcher might decide to measure age in months

in order to get someone’s precise age, while another researcher might just choose to measure age

in years. In order to understand the results of the study, we will need to know how this researcher

operationalized age. For the sake of this example lets say that age is defined as how old someone

is in years.

Variable Two: The variable of addiction is slightly more complicated than age. In order to

operationalize it the researcher has to decide exactly how they want to measure addiction. They

might narrow down their definition and say that addiction is defined as going through withdrawal

when the person stops using a substance. Or the researchers might decide that the definition of
addiction is: if someone currently meets the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for any substance use

disorder. For the sake of this example, let’s say that the researcher chose the latter.

Final Definition: In this research study age is defined as participant’s age measured in years and

the incidence of addiction is defined as whether or not the participant currently meets the DSM-5

diagnostic criteria for any substance use disorder.

Example Two

A researcher wants to measure if there is a correlation between hot weather and violent crime.

Perhaps their guiding hypothesis is: as temperature increases so will violent crime. Here we have

two variables, weather and violent crime. In order to make this research precise the researcher

will have to operationalize the variables.

Variable One: The first variable is weather. The researcher needs to decide how to define

weather. Researchers might chose to define weather as outside temperature in degrees

Fahrenheit. But we need to get a little more specific because there is not one stable temperature

throughout the day. So the researchers might say that weather is defined as the high recorded

temperature for the day measured in degrees Fahrenheit.

Variable Two: The second variable is violent crime. Again, the researcher needs to define how

violent crime is measured. Let’s say that for this studies we use the FBI’s definition of violent

crime. This definition describes violent crime as “murder and no negligent manslaughter,

forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault”.

Researchers might include in the definition something like: the number of people arrested that

day for violent crimes as recorded by the local police.

Final Definition: For this study temperature was defined as high recorded temperature for the day

measured in degrees Fahrenheit. Violent crime was defined as the number of people arrested in a

given day for murder, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault as recorded by the local

police.

Why We Need Operational Definitions

There are a number of reasons why researchers need to have operational definitions including:

Validity

The first reason is that others should be able to assess the validity of the research. That is, did the

researchers measure what they intended to measure? If we don’t know how researchers measured

something it is very hard to know if the study had validity.

Replicability

The next reason it is important to have an operational definition is for the sake of replicability.

Research should be designed so that if someone else wanted to replicate it they could. By

replicating research and getting the same findings we validate the findings. It is impossible to

recreate a study if we are unsure about how they defined or measured the variables.
Generalizability

Another reason we need operational definitions is so that we can understand how generalizable

the findings are. In research, we want to know that the findings are true not just for a small

sample of people. We hope to get findings that generalize to the whole population. If we do not

have operational definitions it is hard to generalize the findings because we don’t know who they

generalize to.

Dissemination

Finally, operational definitions are important for the dissemination of information. When a study

is done it is generally published in a peer-reviewed journal and might be read by other

psychologists, students, or journalists. Researchers want people to read their research and apply

their findings. If the person reading the article doesn’t know what they are talking about because

a variable is not clear it will be hard to them to actually apply this new knowledge.

Reliability and Validity

If operational definitions are not always good, how does one distinguish a good one from a bad

one? This brings up two basic scientific concepts: reliability and validity.

A good operational definition should be reliable and valid. Here are capsule definitions:

A test is reliable if it produces the same results, again and again, when measuring the same thing.

A test is valid if it measures what you think it measures, as determined by independent ways of

measuring the same thing.

you are measuring the same exact thing both times. If you get different results when measuring

the same thing on two different occasions, the instrument is unreliable.

Validity was described as a property that a test possesses if it "measures what you think it

measures." How is that determined?

A common sense judgment of validity is that a measurement sounds reasonable on the face of it.

That is called face validity. It is just an opinion that a measurement technique sounds good.

Face validity is not very useful to scientists. In fact, it can be a problem, because a test with high

face validity may go unchallenged even though it produces misleading results (like equating

smiles with happiness, the example used earlier).

Experts on testing list several other types of validity that are more important than face validity.

All are variations on the theme of predictive validity. A test or measurement is valid if you can

use it to make accurate predictions.