Concept vs Construct

[japro]

 

source: http://www.scribd.com/doc/50306211/5-Concepts-Constructs-Variables

CONCEPTS, CONSTRUCTS AND VARIABLES

Researchers, very often, attach same meaning to the terms like "concept" and "construct"which are used in social research. Yet there is an important distinction. A concept expressesan abstraction formed by generalization from particulars. "Weight" is a concept: it expressesnumerous observation of things that are more or less "heavy" or "light". "Mass", "energy", and"force" are concept used by physical scientists. They are, of course, much more abstract thanconcepts such as "weight" "height" and "length".

A concept of more interest, for example, is "achievement". It is an abstraction formed from theobservation of certain behaviors of children. These behaviours are associated with the masteryof "learning" of school tasks- reading words, doing arithmetic problems, drawing pictures, andso on. The various observed behaviours are put together and expressed in a word"achievement". "Intelligence", aggressiveness"' "conformity"' and "honesty" are all conceptsused to express varieties of human behaviour of interest to behavioural scientists. Similarly"brand loyalty" "industrialisation", "preferences"' "economic status" risk aversiveness etc arealso example of concepts.

A construct is a concept but with the added meaning, however, of having been deliberately andconsciously invented or adopted for a special scientific purpose. "Intelligence" is a concept, anabstraction from the observation of presumably intelligent and non-intelligent behaviours. Butas a scientific construct, "intelligence" means both more and less than it may mean as aconcept. It means that scientists consciously and systematically use it in two ways. One, itenters into theoretical schemes and is related in various ways to other constructs. We maysay, for example, that school achievement is in part a function of intelligence and motivation.Two "intelligence" is so defined and specified that it can be observed and measured. We canmake observations of the intelligence of children by administering and intelligence test or wecan ask teachers to tell us the relative degrees of intelligence of their pupils. Similarly brandloyalty and economic status of consumers in a certain market segment may be two concepts.These could be construct and be related provided we have methods to measure these