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ConceptsIn figure 7.2 below, qualitative and quantitative approaches have beencharacterized in terms of the element referred to as construct or concept.Obviously, it has to be borne in mind that we are not interested in discretecategorizations but rather in different placings on this continuum.FIGURE 7.2QUALITATIVESurplus meaning: in other words, theconcept can be interpreted in anumber of ways.Sensitizing concepts; meaningfulsketches.Intuitive experience for labelling.Reasonable degree of connotativelyrich meaning.CONCEPTS(Operational specificity)QUANTITATIVEUnambiguous meaning: in otherwords, new words with a uniquemeaning could even be created.Precisely identified terms.Can be operationalized in terms ofmeasuring instruments.Strives towards complete denotativemeanings.Free download from www.hsrcpress.ac.zaFor the qualitative researcher concepts and constructs are meaningful wordsthat can be analyzed in their own right to gain a greater depth of understandingof a given concept. It is a frequent occurrence that qualitative researchers willconduct an etymological analysis of a concept as part of their description of aphenomenon. Such researchers will then interpret the phenomenon on the basisof the wealth of meaning of the concept. Quantitative researchers, on the otherhand, are likely to choose concepts, or even to create words, in such a mannerthat no more than a single meaning can be attached to the word that theychoose. It is also essential that such researchers would have to specify from theoutset how they intend making that (abstract) concept visible. In other words,they would have to provide an explicit operational definition of the concept.An operational definition is a description of the actions that are requiredultimately to measure the concept. A simple example of an operationaldefinition would be to say that disarmament (= concept) is the score thatpeople attain on a Likert scale that measures attitudes to disarmament. In sharpdistinction to this, qualitative researchers are more inclined to allow themselvesto be led by meaningful sketches or by intuition.In the preceding discussion we have indicated that the concepts in qualitativestudies are frequently likely to be connotatively richer, while those inquantitative studies will be denotatively more specific.160