Dictionary

operational definition en · NOUN

Meanings

1. A showing of something — such as a variable, term, or object — in terms of the specific process or set of validation tests used to determine its presence and quantity.
   • Those sociologists who advocate greater use of operational definitions have been challenged to define "operational definition" operationally. This paper attempts to meet that challenge. 1943, Stuart C. Dodd and Ethel Shanas, Operational Definitions Operationally Definedhttps://www.jstor.org/stable/2770015
   • The operational definition of a well-behaved student might be set at the threshold of "no more than 2 detentions in each semester".
   • By analysing the practical utility of definitions of life in scientific practice, we propose that definitions of life in these domains should be considered in a non-standard and weaker sense, as operational definitions. This choice of terminology is inspired by the use of the same term in the scientific literatures of Origins of Life and Synthetic Biology (e.g., Fleischaker, 1990; Luisi 1998). We use the term ‘operational’ in a wide sense, referring both to (1) the possibility to define something by means of operations (e.g., defining an entity by measuring or building it following a specific procedure), and (2) the idea that the contents of the definition (e.g., the conditions for life) can be operationalised for empirical research, that is, can be built, manipulated and tested in the laboratory. 2017, Leonardo Bich & Sara Green, Is defining life pointless? Operational definitions at the frontiers of Biologyhttps://philarchive.org/rec/BICIDL
   • The position of certain recent publications is examined and criticized because they seem to imply (a) that under some circumstances ambiguous concepts are more useful than precise ones and (b) that operational difinitions are of limited usefulness in sociology because of their dependence upon quantitative characteristics, whereas some items referred to by sociological concepts are "essentially qualitative in nature." Both assumptions are here questioned. 1942, George A. Lundberg, Operational Definitions in the Social Scienceshttps://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/219004
   • To divide the spectrum of spicy sauces into three categories of "mildly spicy", "moderately spicy", and "extremely spicy", we set the operational definitions of "mild", "moderate", and "extreme" as (a) 0 to 3 × 10³ Scoville units, (b) more than 3 × 10³ up to 100 × 10³, and (c) more than 100 × 10³, respectively.

Forms

Coordinates

dictionary definition · conceptual definition · stipulative definition · ostensive definition · lexical definition

Hypernyms

definition · identity · characterization · meaning

Relateds

operationalization · standard operating procedure · operationalize · operationalism

Translations (3)

cs operacionální definice (definition in terms of operations or measurements) · pl definicja operacyjna (definition in terms of operations or measurements) · cs operační definice (definition in terms of operations or measurements)