Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to second edition
- Preface to first edition
- 1 The domain of methodology
- 2 Science and anthropology
- 3 Operationalism in anthropological research
- 4 Units of observation: emic and etic approaches
- 5 Tools of research – I
- 6 Tools of research – II: nonverbal techniques
- 7 Counting and sampling
- 8 Measurement, scales, and statistics
- 9 Art and science in field work
- 10 Research methods, relevance, and applied anthropology
- 11 Building anthropological theory: methods and models
- Appendixes
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - Operationalism in anthropological research
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to second edition
- Preface to first edition
- 1 The domain of methodology
- 2 Science and anthropology
- 3 Operationalism in anthropological research
- 4 Units of observation: emic and etic approaches
- 5 Tools of research – I
- 6 Tools of research – II: nonverbal techniques
- 7 Counting and sampling
- 8 Measurement, scales, and statistics
- 9 Art and science in field work
- 10 Research methods, relevance, and applied anthropology
- 11 Building anthropological theory: methods and models
- Appendixes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
As has been frequently pointed out, a main requirement of the scientific method is that the procedures of the researcher should be clearly (and publicly) specified, so that other scientists can understand how particular results were produced and can replicate the research when they should wish to do so. In The Structure of Science (1961) Nagel states:
If … theory is to be used as an instrument of explanation and prediction, it must somehow be linked with observable materials. The indispensability of such linkages has been repeatedly stressed in recent literature, and a variety of labels have been coined for them: coordinating definitions, operational definitions, semantic rules, correspondence rules, epistemic correlations, and rules of interpretation.
(Nagel, 1961:93.)He adds that “the ways in which theoretical notions are related to observational procedures are often quite complex, and there appears to be no single scheme which adequately represents all of them” (ibid., p. 94).
Operationalism and intersubjectivity
Examination of the pages of typical scientific reporting provides us with indications of what operationalism is all about. Descriptions of research in the pages of Science, for example, are full of information such as the following (all examples are from Science, May 12, 1967):
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Anthropological ResearchThe Structure of Inquiry, pp. 38 - 53Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1978