Operationalisation

This term describes when a variable is defined by the researcher and a way of measuring that variable is developed for the research.

This is not always easy and care must be taken to ensure that the method of measurement gives a valid measure for the variable.

The term operationalisation can be applied to independent variables (IV), dependent variables (DV) or co variables (in a correlational design)

Examples of operationalised variables are given in the table below: