---
title: "Operationalization"
chunk: 2/2
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operationalization"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:58:21.203235+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

=== Anger example ===
For example, a researcher may wish to measure the concept "anger." Its presence, and the depth of the emotion, cannot be directly measured by an outside observer because anger is intangible.  Rather, other measures are used by outside observers, such as facial expression, choice of vocabulary, loudness and tone of voice.
If a researcher wants to measure the depth of "anger" in various persons, the most direct operation would be to ask them a question, such as "are you angry", or "how angry are you?".   This operation is problematic, however, because it depends upon the definition of the individual.  Some people might be subjected to a mild annoyance, and become slightly angry, but describe themselves as "extremely angry," whereas others might be subjected to a severe provocation, and become very angry, but describe themselves as "slightly angry."  In addition, in many circumstances it is impractical to ask subjects whether they are angry.
Since one of the measures of anger is loudness, the researcher can operationalize the concept of anger by measuring how loudly subjects speak compared to their normal tones. However, this must assume that loudness is a uniform measure. Some might respond verbally while others might respond physically.

=== Economics objections ===
One of the main critics of operationalism in social science argues that "the original goal was to eliminate the subjective mentalistic concepts that had dominated earlier psychological theory and to replace them with a more operationally meaningful account of human behavior. But, as in economics, the supporters ultimately ended up "turning operationalism inside out". "Instead of replacing 'metaphysical' terms such as 'desire' and 'purpose'" they "used it to legitimize them by giving them operational definitions." Thus in psychology, as in economics, the initial, quite radical operationalist ideas eventually came to serve as little more than a "reassurance fetish" for mainstream methodological practice."

== Tying to conceptual frameworks ==

The above discussion links operationalization to measurement of concepts. Many scholars have worked to operationalize concepts like job satisfaction, prejudice, anger etc.  Scale and index construction are forms of operationalization. There is not one perfect way to operationalize. For example, in the United States the concept distance driven would be operationalized as miles, whereas kilometers would be used in Europe.
Operationalization is part of the empirical research process. An example is the empirical research question of if job satisfaction influences job turnover.  Both job satisfaction and job turnover need to be measured. The concepts and their relationship are important — operationalization occurs within a larger framework of concepts.   When there is a large empirical research question or purpose the conceptual framework that organizes the response to the question must be operationalized before the data collection can begin.  If a scholar constructs a questionnaire based on a conceptual framework, they have operationalized the framework.  Most serious empirical research should involve operationalization that is transparent and linked to a conceptual framework.
Another example, the hypothesis Job satisfaction reduces job turnover is one way to connect (or frame) two concepts – job satisfaction and job turnover. The process of moving from the idea job satisfaction to the set of questionnaire items that form a job satisfaction scale is operationalization. For example, it is possible to measure job satisfaction using only two simple questions: "All in all, I am satisfied with my job", and, "In general, I like my job."
Operationalization uses a different logic when testing a formal (quantitative) hypothesis and testing working hypothesis (qualitative). For formal hypotheses the concepts are represented empirically (or operationalized) as numeric variables and tested using inferential statistics. Working hypotheses (particularly in the social and administrative sciences), however, are tested through evidence collection and the assessment of the evidence. The evidence is generally collected within the context of a case study. The researcher asks if the evidence is sufficient to "support" the working hypothesis. Formal operationalization would specify the kinds of evidence needed to support the hypothesis as well as evidence which would "fail" to support it. Robert Yin recommends developing a case study protocol as a way to specify the kinds of evidence needed during the data collection phases. He identifies six sources of evidence: documentation; archival records; interviews; direct observations; participant observation and physical or  cultural artifacts.
In the field of public administration, Shields and Tajalli (2006) have identified five kinds of conceptual frameworks (working hypothesis, descriptive categories, practical ideal type, operations research, and formal hypothesis). They explain and illustrate how each of these conceptual frameworks can be operationalized. They also show how to make conceptualization and operationalization more concrete by demonstrating how to form conceptual framework tables that are tied to the literature and operationalization tables that lay out the specifics of how to operationalize the conceptual framework (measure the concepts).

== See also ==
Proxy (statistics)

== Notes ==

== Further reading ==
A. Cornelius Benjamin (1955) Operationism via HathiTrust