Please help me! I have a research methods test!!?

I know what nominal, ordinal and interval-ratio variables are....





but what does operational (variable) mean?





Is the the same as ordinal?





Please help me out and give me an example





Thanks so much!!

Please help me! I have a research methods test!!?
If you are looking out for samples of research methods, you can browse through a lot of samples here in http://www.coursework4you.co.uk/sprtdis1... and you can also find tips on how to make one here in http://www.coursework4you.co.uk/How_to_F...
Reply:OPERATIONAL VARIABLE means that how are we actually going to observe or measure the conceptual variables





Roughly:


Operational variable = conceptual variable + measurement error


(more technically: observed score = true score + error)





Often, independent variables are assumed to be measured without error.





Definitions:


A variable is descriptive information that has more than one value among a set of observations.





A constant is descriptive information that has only one value among a set of observations.





Others call operational variables as “scales” and conceptual variables as “variables”. So please, “don’t confuse scales with variables.”





More accurately, however, a “scale” is a set of possible values for an operational variable, thus an operational variable consists of observations on a given scale.





For example, “height in centimeters” is an operational variable representing the conceptual variable “tallness” on the metric scale.