Summary

This chapter has focused on understanding how a researcher moves from identifying concepts to conceptualizing them and then to operationalizing them in a research project. Each step becomes more specific than the previous. The researcher begins with a general interest, identifies a few concepts that are essential for studying the area of interest, works to define those concepts, and then spells them out precisely. As discussed earlier in the chapter, the researcher next must decide how to measure those concepts. In other words, the researcher’s focus becomes narrower and narrower as s/he moves from a general interest to operationalization.