Understanding Concepts and Operational Definitions in Research
The Concept
The concept itself is a key element in the investigation. The conceptualization of a phenomenon is achieved through the determination of inherent properties that can be described through their similarities, differences, associations, and/or reinforcements. We can refer to any scientific theoretical system called a system of concepts or conceptual system.
“Now, we use these terms to represent phenomena or aspects thereof that we are investigating. Therefore, when we formulate a proposition, we use the concepts as symbols of the phenomena we are studying, and really, these fundamental phenomena are what we are relating. However, because we are dealing directly only with the concepts, it is clear that we can sometimes confuse the concept with the phenomenon that it is supposed to be a symbol of” (Goode and Hatt, 1969, p. 57; the italics are mine).
The concept is an abstract symbolic (verbal) representation of a particular phenomenon. For example, the term “pine.” We know that no two identical pines exist. They vary in height, thickness, color, and direction of the branches. They may have fruit, but equally, many people recognize immediately whether or not a tree is a pine tree (in these conceptualizations, illiterate people can achieve extremely high levels of systematic knowledge, as demonstrated by Claude Levi-Strauss’ The Savage Mind, the science of the concrete).
For “pine” to be a concept, it must also serve to distinguish all the pines from other plants, trees, and other phenomena or facts. Conceptualization of processes is further complicated (as we know from experience), for example, the conceptualization of participatory processes or social research.
Conceptualizing Processes
Usually, it starts through an inventory (descriptive research or diagnostic) of the processes that are commonly called participation or social research. Hence, internal differences within these processes will also be assessed.
In the example of participation, we can distinguish the ways in which participants:
- Can speak
- Are entitled to receive all information
- Can make decisions together
- Can also implement those decisions
- Can be evaluated
- Can direct complex processes and have full responsibility for a particular process (self-management)
In the case of research, we can distinguish different methods, procedures, techniques, and instruments. Hence, the tendency to place adjectives to the major concept in distinguishing its different forms, such as social research. Or introduce a new concept to differentiate it from other forms, such as self-management, which is distinguished from other forms of participation.
Abstract Systems
Conceptualization is more difficult with abstract systems such as ideology, religion, etc. From the concept, we can step towards the operational definition. This type of definition takes us from abstraction (the concept) to the instrumentalization of the observation of a phenomenon.
Operational Definitions
Occasionally, concepts are confused with operational definitions of them, such as by the physicist Bridgman (The Logic of Modern Physics, McMillan, 1927) and some pragmatic sociologists. Bridgman asserted: “In general, we understand concepts as just a set of operations. The significance of a proposal is its verifiability.”
The operational definition can be understood as those operations “in which the concept is defined by the operations that allow it to be measured” (Grawitz, Volume 11, p. 321, mentions it as operational definitions).