Psychological measurement: operationism, scales, validity

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NS4101 - Week 7, Lecture 1.

Psychological Measurement

Operationism (defining measures)

Measurement:

Natural sciences investigate physically observable things, like the way physics do. But psychology often investigates things that they assume exist but cannot directly measure.

Issues with defining measurement.

Numbers in psychology.

Scales of measurement.

Reliability and validity of

measures.

Defining Measurement:

Psychologists operationise constructs which cannot be physically measured. They believe that even unobservable measures have observable consequences. So if we measure the consequences, we can indirectly measure the factors.

For example: To measure extroversion we need to measure the extent to which people behave in an extrovert way.

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