Writing for Research

Q : In your opinion should one use a single item to measure an abstract concept /construct such as self-esteem , intelligence , or teacher self-efficacy ? How would you as researcher measure such concepts

Answer

Concepts are something to be understood . They cannot be `defined . Based on the understandings we develop a reality . Vegetation can be a concept the crop , for example fruit or vegetable would be the reality . Reality can easily be quantified and /or measured . However , we do encounter certain issues while measuring concepts . For this purpose we have to be very

careful about the criteria and the domain in which attempt to measure a concept . In to have a clear idea about how to infer about the concepts such as that of self-esteem or intelligence , it would be important to have an excellent measure perfect knowledge that the available expertise has to offer

While measuring self-esteem and /or intelligence , it is necessary to take into account the situation that we are into at that particular time frame . This is to avoid any conflicts in to clarify our findings the other incentive for this might be to reduce the effect and accommodate for certain other external factors that are implicit to different situations and environments . We also need to be careful about the extent to which the measure (s ) need to be customized to suit the particular situation or environment in to predict the behavior of our variable (s ) with reasonable accuracy

Multiple items therefore can be used to measure a concept or an abstract . This help in cross-checking the effects of the different variables used to measure it . It increases the level of certainty that we as researcher can have in the results obtained . Since solutions to concept measuring are apt to be elusive , some qualitative measures are best accompanied by few quantitative measures in to have accuracy from all angles

References

Whichard Judith A (2006 ) Reliability and Validity of True colors Retrieved September 16 , 2008 from www .truecolors .org...