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Other latent variables correspond to abstract concepts, like categories, behavioral or mental states, or data structures. The terms hypothetical variables or hypothetical constructs may be used in these situations. The use of latent variables can serve to reduce the dimensionality of data. Many observable variables can be aggregated in a model ...
In the philosophy of science, particularly in reference to scientific theories, a hypothetical construct is an explanatory variable which is not directly observable. For example, the concepts of intelligence and motivation are used to explain phenomena in psychology , but neither is directly observable.
Validity evidence based on nomological validity is a general form of construct validity. It is the degree to which a construct behaves as it should within a system of related constructs (the nomological network). [3] Nomological networks are used in theory development and use a modernist [clarification needed] approach. [4]
Key to construct validity are the theoretical ideas behind the trait under consideration, i.e. the concepts that organize how aspects of personality, intelligence, etc. are viewed. [13] Paul Meehl states that, "The best construct is the one around which we can build the greatest number of inferences, in the most direct fashion." [1]
Operationalization is the scientific practice of operational definition, where even the most basic concepts are defined through the operations by which we measure them. The practice originated in the field of physics with the philosophy of science book The Logic of Modern Physics (1927), by Percy Williams Bridgman, whose methodological position is called "operationalism".
In economics, a model is a theoretical construct that represents economic processes by a set of variables and a set of logical and/or quantitative relationships between them. The economic model is a simplified framework designed to illustrate complex processes, often but not always using mathematical techniques.
Social and health sciences interact with non-empirical fields and use both observation based and pre-existing concepts such as intelligence, race, and gender. In psychology the term "conceptual definition" is used for a concept variable. [6]
In classical real analysis, one way to define a real number is as an equivalence class of Cauchy sequences of rational numbers.. In constructive mathematics, one way to construct a real number is as a function ƒ that takes a positive integer and outputs a rational ƒ(n), together with a function g that takes a positive integer n and outputs a positive integer g(n) such that