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Concepts, Operationalization, and Measurement

Chapter 4

Introduction

We want to move from vague ideas of what we want to study to actually being able to recognize and measure it in the real world

Otherwise, we will be unable to communicate the relevance of our idea and findings to an audience

Moving from vague ideas to a completed research report involves communication at every step – from general ideas to more precise definition of terms

Conceptions and Concepts

Conception: mental or subjective image we have about something

e.g., our conception of recidivism or serious crime – a label we use to represent a concept

Concepts: words, phrases, or symbols in language that are used to represent these mental images in communication

Serious crime is a construct created from our conception of it

We use concepts to communicate or share our mental images

Crime represents mental images of illegal acts

Example of Concept

According to Gottfredson and Hirschi's General Theory of Crime, low levels of self-control is the primary cause of crime. Because self-control is a concept, how to conceptualize and measure it has been debated extensively among academics. Furthermore, the measuring of symptoms of levels of self-control and the inability to measure self-control directly has led some academics to argue that the General Theory of Crime is a tautology and is, therefore, not testable.

Conceptualization

Conceptualization: is the process by which we specify precisely what we mean when we use particular term
Eg trying to find out whether violent crime is more serious than non-violent crime

Violent crime = offender uses force (or threatens to use force) against a victim ex. robbery, rape, murder are VC, whereas shoplifting, auto theft, burglary are non VC

Conceptualization results in a set of dimensions/extent and indicators of what we have in mind

Indicates a presence or absence of the concept we are studying

Dimensions and Indicators

Dimension – specifiable aspect of a concept

“Crime Seriousness” – can be subdivided into dimensions

e.g., speaking of “victim harm dimension” of crime seriousness. This dimension could have indicators such as-

Indicators – physical injury, economic loss, psychological consequences

Victim identity dimension – eg killing a burglar in self defense is not as serious as threatening to kill the president

Specification leads to deeper understanding

Creating Conceptualization Order

Conceptual definition: working definition specifically assigned to a term, provides focus to our observations

Gives us a specific working definition so that readers will understand the concept

E.g., Wishing to examine socioeconomic status –

Which dimensions of SocioEconomic Status will be included? – income/educational attainment

Creating Conceptualization Order

Operational definition: spells out precisely how the concept will be measured

E.g., How will we measure Social Economic Status?

What was your total household income during the past 15 months

How many persons are in your household

What is the highest level of school you have completed

Progression of Measurement Steps

Conceptualization

Conceptual Definition

Operational Definition

Measurements in the Real World

Operationalization Choices

Operationalization – the process of developing operational definitions or measurement

Requires us to determine what might work as a data-collection method

Crime seriousness – one dimension of CS is the penalties assigned to different crimes by state law: VA criminal code

Consult VA CC – 1. Crimes punishable by death might be judged most serious; 2. crimes punishable by prison sentence > 1 yr; 3. those with jail sentences of < 1 yr are least serious

Operationz. Using secondary data, make a list of crimes described in the VA code & classify each crime into one of the 3 categories

2nd ex. see note

Measurement as “Scoring”

Measurement – assigning numbers or labels to units of analysis in order to represent the conceptual properties

eg. instructors scores exams by counting the right answers & assigning some point value to each answer

Make observations, and assign scores to them

Different measurement can produce different results

E.g., Time frame (one or two years failure) in which recidivism is measured might produce different results

Operationalizing recidivism as a one yr failure rate is less accurate than operat. as a 2-yr failure rate

Exhaustive and Exclusive Measurement

Every variable should have two important qualities:

1st, the attributes composing variable should be exhaustive

Variable = gender & attributes = male /female pg. 87

Employment status = employed, unemployed, full/part time or retired

Exhaustive – researchers must be able to classify every observation in terms of one of the attributes composing the variable

Sentence = prison, fine, probation, suspended sentence, community service

We make the list of attributes exhaustive by adding other & combination

Exhaustive and Exclusive Measurement

Secondly, the attributes composing variable must be mutually exclusive

Mutually exclusive – researchers must be able to classify every observation in terms of one and only one attribute

Example. define prison and fine in a way that nobody can possess both attributes at the same time.

Attributes could be defined more precisely Eg. prison only, fine only & both prison and fine

Example – Measure for Marijuana Use

Not exclusive or exhaustive

How many times in the last year have you smoked marijuana?

1-3

3-6

6-9

Reworded to be exclusive or exhaustive

How many times in the last year have you smoked marijuana?

1-2

3-6

7-9

10 or more times

Levels of Measurement

Nominal: variables whose attributes have only the characteristics of exhaustiveness & mutual exclusiveness

They offer names or labels for characteristics (e.g., race, gender, state of residence)

Ordinal: variables whose attributes may be logically rank-ordered

Represents more or less of the variable

(e.g., education, crime seriousness, employment status)

Levels of Measurement

Interval: when the actual distance that separates the attributes composing some variables does have meaning

Logical distance between attributes (e.g., temperature or distance b/w 80 degrees & 90 degrees is the same as 40 & 50 degrees, IQ score from an intelligence test)

Ratio: the attributes are based on a true zero point

0 data value indicates the absence of object being measured (e.g., age, sentence length, income in $, dollar value of property loss from burglary)

Criteria for Measurement Quality

Precision and accuracy are important qualities in research measurement

Measurements can be made with varying degrees of precision

Saying that she is 43 years old is more precise than saying that she is in her forties

The more precise, the better

Don’t confuse precision with accuracy

Many CJ measures are imprecise, eg felony sentence of more than one year

so reporting approximate values is sometimes more accurate

Reliability

Reliability: whether a particular measurement technique, repeatedly applied to the same object, would yield the same result each time. – Means consistency

Problems – even if the same result is retrieved, it may be incorrect every time

Reliability does not ensure accuracy eg speedometer in ur car is a reliable for measuring speed but may be off by a few miles/hr

if you take the ACT five times, you should get roughly the same results every time

Observer’s subjectivity might come into play when one observer is the source of data

Methods of Dealing with Reliability Issues

Test-retest method – make the same measurement more than once –

if no changes in information we should expect same response every time

Interrater reliability – compare measurements from different raters; verify initial measurements

To ensure reliability; a supervisor can call respondents on phone to verify selected information

Comparing measurement from different raters or coders

Validity

Whether empirical measure adequately reflects the meaning of the concept under consideration

Validity reflects accuracy – i.e. whether you are really measuring what you say you are measuring?

EX, if a weight measuring scale is wrong by 5kg, the measurement is not valid because it does not display the actual weight of the item

Demonstrating validity is more difficult than demonstrating reliability

Methods of Dealing with Validity Issues

Face validity: on its face, does it seem valid? Does it agree with our common agreements and our individual mental images?

Eg the thermometer in the house is supposed to measure the temperature in the house

Criterion-related validity: compares a measure to some external criterion

A measure can be validated by showing that it predicts scores on another measure that is generally accepted as valid

Eg the validity of College Board Exams is shown in their ability to predict the success of students in college

Methods of Dealing with Validity Issues

Construct validity: consider logical relationships among variables

Eg. measuring fear of crime and leaving homes at night for entertainment

Multiple measures: compare measure with alternative measures of the same concept

Self-report surveys can be validated by checking police arrest records to see if there are records of arrests that subjects reported

Self-report surveys ask questions on “how many crimes they have committed” eg how many robbery they have committed; or how many times they were arrested for dat

Measuring Crime

Crime is a fundamental dependent variable in criminal justice

Crime can be a dependent variable in exploratory, descriptive, explanatory, and applied studies

Crime can also be an independent variable, as in a study of how crime affects fear and other attitudes

It can be both: the relationship between drug use and crime

General Issues in Measuring Crime

How do you conceptualize crime?

Begin by proposing a conceptual definition of crime – to enable you to decide what specific type of crime to measure

What units of analysis (UOA) should be used?

UOA are Specific entities researchers collect information about

4 elements of crime/UOA: Offender (most basic) eg burglar; victims(victim of burglary, banks); offenses (burglary); incidents (1 or > offenses committed by the same offender, a single incident can include multiple offenses)

What purpose? e.g., monitoring, agency accountability, research

Measures Based on Crimes Known to Police

Most widely used measures of crime are based on police records (crimes known to police)

Certain types are detected almost exclusively by observation (traffic offenses)

Most crimes are reported by victim or witnesses

What crimes are not measured well by police records?

Uniform Crime Reports (UCR)

Police measures of crime form the basis for the FBI’s UCR

UCR is a data series that has been collected since 1930 and has been widely used by CJ researchers

Type I offenses (index crimes/offenses): murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, larceny-theft, burglary, motor vehicle theft and arson (arson was added in 1979)

Type II offenses: a compilation of less serious crimes

Simple assault, embezzlement, sex offenses, drug law violations, vandalism, fraud, forgery and counterfeiting, driving under the influence, gambling, drunkenness etc

Assumptions of UCR

Citizens know an offense has occurred

Citizen voluntarily reports offense to the police

Officer can verify that the offense occurred

Officer decides the offense deserves to be reported

Agency’s records/numbers end up being forwarded to FBI on time

Positives of UCR

Can compare agencies

Quick, easy, and efficient

Index offenses are valid indicators of public’s crime concerns

Negatives of UCR

Doesn’t count ALL crimes reported to police –

UCR only counts 8 offense type:

4 violent offenses; murder, & manslaughter, rape, robbery and aggravated assault.

4 pty offenses eg. Burglary, larceny theft, MV theft, & arson.

An additional 20 offenses are counted only if a person has been arrested and charged with a crime.

UCR d/4 does not include such offenses as drug sale or use, fraud, prostitution, simple assault, receiving stolen property & other non traffic offenses unless someone is arrested

Negatives of UCR

Jurisdictions vary in completeness of crime data they provide to FBI; voluntary

Can suffer from clerical, data processing, political problems

Hierarchy rule – only most serious crime counted in an incident

Summary-based measure: UCR data include summary crime counts from reporting agencies

Incident-Based Police Records

Incident-based measures: US DOJ sponsors 2 series of crime measure that are based on incidence as unit of analysis

1. Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR) – part of UCR program

Police agencies submit detailed info about individual homicide incidents eg info about offenders (age, gender, race), victims, r/ship b/w them, weapons used, location of incidents, circumstances surrounding killing

SHR Can conduct a variety of studies that examine individual events

National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS)

Joint effort by FBI and BJS to convert UCR to a NIBRS

NIBRS reports each crime incident rather than the total number of certain crimes for each Law Enforcement agency

Collects detailed information on each incident for each offense, victim and offender and doing so for a large number of offense types

Eg, UCR reports information about 8 Part 1 offenses whereas – NIBRS collects detailed information on 46 Group A offenses (see pg. 99)

Other Revisions with NIBRS

Hierarchy rule dropped

Reports Victim type (individual, business, government, society/public)

Reports Attempted/completed offenses.

Computer-based submission

Reports Drug-related offenses

Reports Computer related crimes eg cybercrime

National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)

Victimization survey: asks people whether they have been the victim of a crime

Started since 1972 by US Census Bureau

Based on a nationally representative sample of households

Sought to illuminate the “dark figure of crime” (DFC)

DFC describes the amount of unreported or undiscovered crime

Longitudinal panel study: households agree to participate for 3.5 years (7 interviews; one every 6 months) and then replaced

Does not measure all crime like truancy – victimless crimes

Respondents are asked screening questions

Positives of NCVS

Measures both reported and unreported crime

NCVS can be used in studies in which individuals or households are the unit of analysis

More information about how crime impacted victim than UCR

Provides more victim characteristics than UCR

Negatives of NCVS

Telescoping or inaccurate memories about dates, duration & frequencies of events

Faulty memory

Little information on offenders

No information on CJS response if reported

Excludes crimes against businesses or commercial establishments, homeless people

Only includes residents of US

Surveys of Offending

Self-report surveys: ask people about crimes they may have committed

Useful in measuring crimes that are poorly measured by other techniques (prostitution, drug abuse, public order, delinquency)

Useful in measuring crimes rarely reported to police (shoplifting, drunk driving)

National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH)

Based on a national sample of households and households’ residents ages 12 and older

Conducted since 1971; 2012 sample had 67,500 individuals responded to questions regarding their use of illegal drugs, alcohol & tobacco

Includes questions to distinguish between lifetime use, current use, and heavy use of drugs

Encourages candid responses via procedures

Includes residents of college dorms, rooming houses, and homeless shelters

Monitoring the Future (MTF)

Conducted since 1975 by the National Institute on Drug Abuse

It targets a specific population: young people

Includes several samples of high school students and others, totaling about 50,000 respondents each year

Questions concern self-reported use of alcohol, tobacco, illegal drugs, delinquency, other acts

A subset of 2,400 MTF respondents receive follow-up questionnaire

End

Composite Measures

Allows us to combine individual measures to produce more valid and reliable indicators

Typology: produced by the intersection of two or more variables to create a set of categories or types

e.g., Typology of Delinquent/Criminal Acts (Time 1 and 2)

None, Minor (theft of items worth less than $5, vandalism, fare evasion), Moderate (theft over $5, gang fighting, carrying weapons), Serious (car theft, breaking and entering, forced sex, selling drugs

Nondelinquent, Starter, Desistor, Stable, Deescalator, Escalator

Index of Disorder

What is disorder? (Skogan, 1990)

Distinguish b/w physical presence & social perception

Physical disorder: abandoned buildings, garbage and litter, graffiti, junk in vacant lots

Social disorder: groups of loiterers, drug use and sales, vandalism, gang activity, public drinking, street harassment

Index created by averaging scores for each measure