Problem
I. What are the advantages and disadvantages of researchers using different operational definitions to measure the same construct?
II. What are some potential consequences of using a measure that is not reliable, not valid, or both? (For participants, the scientific community, or society.)
III. Can you think of examples where demand characteristics could be present in a study? How might the hypothesis of a study be unintentionally revealed to participants? How could this affect the results?
IV. Some variables can be measured at different levels by using different operational definitions. For example, preferences for country music could be measured by asking people whether they like country music, Yes or No (nominal), asking people to rate how much they like country music from Not at All to Very Much (ordinal), or asking people how many hours per week they listen to country music (ratio). Can you think of other examples like this?