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Operationalism
In research design, especially in psychology, social sciences, life sciences and physics, operationalization or operationalisation is a process of defining the measurement of a phenomenon which is not directly measurable, though its existence is inferred by other phenomena. Operationalization thus defines a fuzzy concept so as to make it clearly distinguishable, measurable, and understandable by empirical observation. In a broader sense, it defines the extension of a concept—describing what is and is not an instance of that concept. For example, in medicine, the phenomenon of health might be operationalized by one or more indicators like body mass index or tobacco smoking. As another example, in visual processing the presence of a certain object in the environment could be inferred by measuring specific features of the light it reflects. In these examples, the phenomena are difficult to directly observe and measure because they are general/abstract (as in the example of health) or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operational Definition
An operational definition specifies concrete, replicable procedures designed to represent a construct. In the words of American psychologist S.S. Stevens (1935), "An operation is the performance which we execute in order to make known a concept." For example, an operational definition of "fear" (the construct) often includes measurable physiologic responses that occur in response to a perceived threat. Thus, "fear" might be operationally defined as specified changes in heart rate, galvanic skin response, pupil dilation, and blood pressure. Overview An operational definition is designed to model or represent a concept or theoretical definition, also known as a construct. Scientists should describe the operations (procedures, actions, or processes) that define the concept with enough specificity such that other investigators can replicate their research. Operational definitions are also used to define system states in terms of a specific, publicly accessible process of preparation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Logic Of Modern Physics
''The Logic of Modern Physics'' is a 1927 philosophy of science book by American physicist and Nobel laureate Percy Williams Bridgman. The book is notable for explicitly identifying, analyzing, and explaining operationalism for the first time, and coining the term operational definition. Widely read by scholars in the social sciences, it had a huge influence in the 1930s and 1940s, and its major influence on the field of psychology in particular surpassed even that on methodology in physics, for which it was originally intended. History The Logic of Modern Physics is a 1927 philosophy of science book by American physicist and Nobel laureate Percy Williams Bridgman notable for explicitly identifying, analyzing, and explaining operationalism for the first time.Sarkar, Sahotra and Pfeifer, Jessica (2005) ''The Philosophy of Science: An Encyclopedia, Volume 1'p. 76/ref> American Pragmatism, Pragmatic philosophers like Charles Sanders Peirce in the 1870s had already advanced solutions t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philosophy Of Science
Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultimate purpose of science. This discipline overlaps with metaphysics, ontology, and epistemology, for example, when it explores the relationship between science and truth. Philosophy of science focuses on metaphysical, epistemic and semantic aspects of science. Ethical issues such as bioethics and scientific misconduct are often considered ethics or science studies rather than the philosophy of science. There is no consensus among philosophers about many of the central problems concerned with the philosophy of science, including whether science can reveal the truth about unobservable things and whether scientific reasoning can be justified at all. In addition to these general questions about science as a whole, philosophers of science consi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mass
Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementary particles, theoretically with the same amount of matter, have nonetheless different masses. Mass in modern physics has multiple definitions which are conceptually distinct, but physically equivalent. Mass can be experimentally defined as a measure of the body's inertia, meaning the resistance to acceleration (change of velocity) when a net force is applied. The object's mass also determines the strength of its gravitational attraction to other bodies. The SI base unit of mass is the kilogram (kg). In physics, mass is not the same as weight, even though mass is often determined by measuring the object's weight using a spring scale, rather than balance scale comparing it directly with known masses. An object on the Moon would weigh le ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edwin Boring
Edwin Garrigues (Garry) Boring (23 October 1886 – 1 July 1968) was an American experimental psychologist, Professor of Psychology at Clark University and at Harvard University, who later became one of the first historians of psychology. A ''Review of General Psychology'' survey, published in 2002, ranked Boring as the 93rd most cited psychologist of the 20th century, tied with John Dewey, Amos Tversky, and Wilhelm Wundt. Early life Boring was born on October 23, 1886, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and grew up in a Quaker family interested in science. His elder sister was the zoologist, Alice Middleton Boring. In 1904, Boring attended Cornell University, where he studied electrical engineering. He earned a ME degree in electrical engineering in 1908 and then took a job at Bethlehem Steel in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Boring returned to Cornell for an AM in physics, but he was instead drawn to the world of psychology by I. Madison Bentley's animal psychology course. Boring notes th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Positivism
Positivism is an empiricist philosophical theory that holds that all genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positive—meaning ''a posteriori'' facts derived by reason and logic from sensory experience.John J. Macionis, Linda M. Gerber, ''Sociology'', Seventh Canadian Edition, Pearson Canada Other ways of knowing, such as theology, metaphysics, intuition, or introspection, are rejected or considered meaningless. Although the positivist approach has been a recurrent theme in the history of western thought, modern positivism was first articulated in the early 19th century by Auguste Comte.. His school of sociological positivism holds that society, like the physical world, operates according to general laws. After Comte, positivist schools arose in logic, psychology, economics, historiography, and other fields of thought. Generally, positivists attempted to introduce scientific methods to their respective fields. Since the turn of the 20th century, positivism has de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Percy Williams Bridgman
Percy Williams Bridgman (April 21, 1882 – August 20, 1961) was an American physicist who received the 1946 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the physics of high pressures. He also wrote extensively on the scientific method and on other aspects of the philosophy of science. The Bridgman effect, the Bridgman–Stockbarger technique, and the high-pressure mineral bridgmanite are named after him. Biography Early life Bridgman was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and grew up in nearby Auburndale. Bridgman's parents were both born in New England. His father, Raymond Landon Bridgman, was "profoundly religious and idealistic" and worked as a newspaper reporter assigned to state politics. His mother, Mary Ann Maria Williams, was described as "more conventional, sprightly, and competitive". Bridgman attended both elementary and high school in Auburndale, where he excelled at competitions in the classroom, on the playground, and while playing chess. Described as both shy and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Introduction To General Relativity
General relativity is a theory of gravitation developed by Albert Einstein between 1907 and 1915. The theory of general relativity says that the observed gravitational effect between masses results from their warping of spacetime. By the beginning of the 20th century, Newton's law of universal gravitation had been accepted for more than two hundred years as a valid description of the gravitational force between masses. In Newton's model, gravity is the result of an attractive force between massive objects. Although even Newton was troubled by the unknown nature of that force, the basic framework was extremely successful at describing motion. Experiments and observations show that Einstein's description of gravitation accounts for several effects that are unexplained by Newton's law, such as minute anomalies in the orbits of Mercury and other planets. General relativity also predicts novel effects of gravity, such as gravitational waves, gravitational lensing and an effect of gr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theory
A theory is a rational type of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the results of such thinking. The process of contemplative and rational thinking is often associated with such processes as observational study or research. Theories may be scientific, belong to a non-scientific discipline, or no discipline at all. Depending on the context, a theory's assertions might, for example, include generalized explanations of how nature works. The word has its roots in ancient Greek, but in modern use it has taken on several related meanings. In modern science, the term "theory" refers to scientific theories, a well-confirmed type of explanation of nature, made in a way consistent with the scientific method, and fulfilling the criteria required by modern science. Such theories are described in such a way that scientific tests should be able to provide empirical support for it, or empirical contradiction ("falsify") of it. Scientific theories are the most reliable, rigorous, and compr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theoretical Definition
A theoretical definition defines a term in an academic discipline, functioning as a proposal to see a phenomenon in a certain way. A theoretical definition is a proposed way of thinking about potentially related events. Theoretical definitions contain ''built-in'' theories; they cannot be simply reduced to describing a set of observations. The definition may contain implicit inductions and deductive consequences that are part of the theory. A theoretical definition of a term can change, over time, based on the methods in the field that created it. Without a falsifiable operational definition, conceptual definitions assume both knowledge and acceptance of the theories that it depends on. A hypothetical construct may serve as a theoretical definition, as can a stipulative definition. In different fields Sciences The term scientific theory is reserved for concepts that are widely accepted. A scientific law often refers to regularities that can be expressed by a mathematical state ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Douglas McGregor
Douglas Murray McGregor (September 6, 1906 – October 1, 1964) was an American management professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and president of Antioch College from 1948 to 1954. He also taught at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. His 1960 book ''The Human Side of Enterprise'' had a profound influence on education practices. McGregor was a student of Abraham Maslow. He has contributed much to the development of the management and motivational theory, and is best known for his Theory X and Theory Y as presented in his book ‘The Human Side of Enterprise’ (1960), which proposed that manager's individual assumptions about human nature and behavior determined how individual manages their employees.Jeong Chun Hai @Ibrahim, & Nor Fadzlina Nawi. (2012). Principles of Public Administration: Malaysian Perspectives. Kuala Lumpur: Pearson Publishers. Early life and education McGregor was born in Detroit, Michigan on September 6, 1906, to Murray James and Jessie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stanley Smith Stevens
Stanley Smith Stevens (November 4, 1906 – January 18, 1973) was an American psychologist who founded Harvard's Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory, studying psychoacoustics, and he is credited with the introduction of Stevens's power law. Stevens authored a milestone textbook, the 1400+ page ''Handbook of Experimental Psychology'' (1951). He was also one of the founding organizers of the Psychonomic Society. In 1946 he introduced a theory of levels of measurement widely used by scientists but whose use in some areas of statistics has been criticized. In addition, Stevens played a key role in the development of the use of operational definitions in psychology. A ''Review of General Psychology'' survey, published in 2002, ranked Stevens as the 52nd most cited psychologist of the 20th century. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the United States National Academy of Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. Life Stevens was born in Ogden, Utah to Stanley ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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