1. Plural of operationalist; people who practice or advocate operationalism, a philosophical approach that defines concepts in terms of the operations or procedures used to measure or determine them.
Usage: philosophy; technical; primarily academic

Examples

• Operationalists argue that scientific terms should be defined by the experimental procedures used to test them.
• The operationalists in the physics department emphasized measurable outcomes over abstract theory.
• Early 20th-century operationalists sought to ground science in observable, reproducible operations.
• Some operationalists believe that intelligence can only be meaningfully defined through IQ testing procedures.