The document discusses the importance of concepts and variables in social scientific research, emphasizing that concepts serve as the building blocks of theories and are subjective in nature. It explains how concepts must be operationalized into measurable variables to conduct meaningful research, detailing types of variables such as independent, dependent, extraneous, and intervening. Additionally, the document illustrates how to convert concepts into indicators for effective measurement and highlights the complexities involved in doing so.

1. CONCEPTS: BUILDING BLOCK OF
SOCIAL SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH.
Presented By:
Dr. TRIPTI SHARMA.

2. INTRODUCTION
• Concepts are the building blocks of theories.
They help to grasp real world phenomena and
to define logical relations among and between
them.
• This is particularly true in the social sciences,
where researchers regularly derive concepts
from politically-laden everyday language.

3. CONCEPTS
• Concepts are general or abstract ideas that
express the social and/or economic phenomena
to be studied. They are the subjects of inquiry
and analysis that are of interest to users.
• Formally and logically developed ideas about
classes of phenomena that a researcher seeks to
study; the "building blocks" of theory.
• A variable consists of two components, a
statistical unit and a property.

4. CONCEPTS
• Highest level of generality
• “A formal definition of what is being studied.”
• “The mental images we use to bring order to the mass of”
things in the social world (Babbie).
• An idea about a phenomenon.
EXAMPLES:
• Adjustment to college (academic, social, and psychological
adjustment)
• Life in outer space (a concept that cannot be fully tested)
• Collective efficacy: social cohesion/trust & informal social
control in a neighborhood, e.g., would someone respond to
someone else in need of aid?

5. VARIABLES
• Logical groupings of attributes.
• The operational measures of the more abstract concepts we’re
studying.
EXAMPLE: To measure adjustment, you can think of questions such as
the following:
• Academic: Are you doing in your work? Are you attending your
classes?
Social: Have you made any friends? What degree of social life do
you have?
• Has to show different values, i.e., must have at least 2 attributes
• Example: For humans, species is not a variable. It is only a variable
when you are taking into account other forms of life besides human
beings.
• Can be numerical or qualitative.

6. WHAT ARE CONCEPTS
• Concepts are highly subjective in nature and that makes it difficult
to use them as they are in a research study. These subjective
thoughts cannot be measured on a statistical scale. Kumar (2000)
says that concepts are mental images and therefore their meanings
vary markedly from individual to individual. Concepts are subjective
impressions and their understanding will differ from person to
person, which, if measured, would cause problems in comparing
responses. Concepts should be converted into variables so that they
can be measured, although on different scales same variable will
have different precision.
• If the researcher is using some concepts in his research he needs to
find out some indicators that are reflective of these concepts. these
indicators can be chosen subjectively by the researcher but they
should have a logical link with the concept. The indicators can then
be converted into variables.

7. EXAMPLES
• Take an example of the effectiveness of a medicine in curing a disease, the researcher can use the
indicators: changes in the mortality rate, changes in morbidity, changes in recurrence of that
disease, or prevention from that disease. These indicators can then be converted into variable to be
able to be measured.
• We can take another example of another concept that is how rich someone can be? To measure
this concept you need an indicator and you can measure someone’s richness from his wealth that
he possesses. This wealth can be in the form of his income, money in his bank accounts, owned
houses or other property and so on.
• A psychologist might want to test the effectiveness of his counseling to patients with anxiety.
Effectiveness is a concept and you cannot measure it on any statistical scale. He can operationalized
his concept of effectiveness of his counseling treatment into the following indicators: percentage
reduction in patients’ anxiety, reduction in his day offs from the workplace, reduction in his visits to
the psychologist office etc.
• Without converting your concept into an indicator and then a variable you cannot measure it on
any scale. The subjectivity of these indicators make them not suitable to be used directly in a
research project. It should also be noted that the extent of variation can only be reduced by
operationalizing these concepts, it cannot be eliminated completely.

8. WHAT ARE VARIABLES
• Variables are measurable of course, with varying degree of
accuracy. Measurability is the main difference between
concepts and variables. A variable can be measured either
using crude or refined method or either using subjective or
objective methods. There are various scales and a variable
can be measured on either one of those scales. The
statistical variables can be measured on either nominal,
ordinal, ratio or interval scale. This ability of the variables
brings objectivity in the research findings.
• A s variables are capable of measurement they can take
different values and every variable can have different
values. Generally speaking variables can be either
independent variable or dependent variable. There can also
be extraneous and intervening variables.

9. TYPES
• INDEPENDENT
• DEPENDENT
• EXTRANEOUS
• INTERVENING

10. Independent variable
• From the viewpoint of causation an
independent variable is a variable that affects
the dependent variable and in itself it is free
of any effects from the dependent variable. It
is the cause for the change in any
phenomenon, situation, disease etc. For
example in testing the cause of juvenile
delinquency in a community, availability of
guns can be taken as the cause and hence the
independent variable.

11. Dependent variable
• The dependent variable is the other main
variable that is the effect of the independent
variable. For example in a research on the
impact of the availability of guns on the youth
crime rate in a certain community, the youth
crime rate is the dependent variable. In the
above example the crime rate among youth is
dependent on the availability of the guns.

12. Extraneous variable
• In reality the situation is not always perfect with
independent and dependent variable. Extraneous
variables are all those variables that can impact
the dependent variable other than the
independent variable. In a laboratory setting it is
comparatively easier to do the experiments in a
perfect environment where the researcher
controls all the extraneous variables. On the
other hand, in a naturals setting it is difficult to
control the extraneous variables.

13. Intervening variable
• In certain situation an intervening variable
needs to be there to have the independent
variable affect the dependent variable. this
variable is not always present but in the
certain situation its intervention plays an
important role between the cause and effect
relationship.