Q 1. What is a concept ?

A concept is an abstraction based on characteristics of perceived reality.(Thompson 2006).

Concept are really mental boxes into which we throw things that we think have important things in
common – categories .For example the concept of education has all sort of things we observe in
the world around us in it like schools , libraries ,life experiences , what parents do to us, and so on.
Some concepts are abstract while others are concrete .we can say that concepts such as ideology,
justice and love are quite abstract and cannot be observed directly , however political
participation, reading newspapers, and voting are concrete and can directly be observed . The point
is that concepts range from abstract to concrete. The more abstract, the less it is directly observed
and the more it needs careful definition so that we know and others to whom we are talking know
what is included in the mental box. The more concrete it is the easier it is to communicate what it
means and what is included and what should be observed in doing research by simply saying the
concept.

Q 2. What is a variable?

Every concept has some kind of property associated with it. Usually they are implicit in definition, for
instance “political efficacy “ has properties of feelings of being able to get what you want when you
become involved in the political process. So if we try to measure this feelings with a question that
has the degree to which someone agrees with the statement; elected leaders pay attention to
opinions of people like us, we have turned the concept into something that can be observed. The
answers to this question if the property of thinking that elected officials pay attention varies over
individuals, then we can conclude that the varying property is a variable. Therefore a variable is a
property associated with a concept that varies when measured. Variable comes in two forms, that is
the dependent and independent variables. The dependent variable is the variable that the
researcher wishes to explain. The independent variable however is the variable which is expected to
change in the dependent variable.

Q 3. Explain with clear examples the levels of measurement discussed in class.

There are four levels of measurement namely;

Nominal, ordinal, and interval and ratio levels of measurement

A nominal variable is a variable which is pre- established and has no numerical values. Here the
categories should be mutually exclusive to each other, it should be exhaustive and there should be
enough categories for every variable to fit in. The categories should also be homogeneous in terms
of the specific research project being conducted. For example gender or marital status. Gender
raises the question of “ What is your gender? ” and the options male or female, where you can
either be one of those and nothing more. Marital status also raises the question” what is your
marital status “ ? The options- married, single or divorced.

Ordinal level of measurement

In this level, variables are ordered into categories with respect to the degree to which they possess
certain characteristics or traits. Categories should be exhaustive and mutually exclusive categories of
response. Ranking is possible in this level. The various ranks in the Ghana police service can be used
as a clear example of the ordinal level since it is ordered from Constance to the highest rank which
the commissioner.

Interval and Ratio

This is the level where the difference between any two values or categories in the data can be
stated numerically and have meaning.Categories are exhaustive and mutually exclusive of response.
Ranking is also allowed here. The distance between the observation is known and can be
calculated.For example 60 -20= 40 which means that 40 is the difference between 60 and 20