Research Methods Chapter 5-8

Front 1

"Measuring anything that exists" - Babbie

Back 1

*social scientists can measure anything
Measurement - means careful, deliberate observations of the real world for the purpose of describing objects and events in terms of the attributes composing a variable.
-our concepts don't exist in real world, so can't be measured directly. We can measure things that our concepts summarize.

Front 2

Conceptualization

Back 2

the mental process whereby concepts are made more specific and precise

Front 3

Operationalization

Back 3

the development of specific research procedures (operations) that will result in empirical observations representing those concepts in the real world.

Front 4

Concepts

Back 4

fuzzy and imprecise notions/ mental images
ex- compassion

Front 5

Constructs

Back 5

theoretical creations based on observation but can not actually be directly of indirectly observed

Front 6

Indicators

Back 6

a sign of the presence or absence of the concept we're studying.

Front 7

Direct indicator

Back 7

something we can apprehend with our senses

Front 8

Indirect indicator

Back 8

through other peoples accounts, diaries, journals

Front 9

Interchangeability of indicators

Back 9

different things can indicate the same thing(or term)
ex- putting bird in a nest is compassionate/ acts of violence considered compassionate

Front 10

Dimensions

Back 10

types/kinds
Love for...
family, significant other, pet, objects

Front 11

Specification

Back 11

The process through which concepts are made more specific.

Front 12

3 types of definitions

Back 12

Real
Nominal
Operational
conceptualization>Nominal definition>Operational definition> Measurements in the Real World

Front 13

Real definition

Back 13

focuses on the "essence" - very general.

Front 14

Nominal definition

Back 14

specific/ assigned particularly to concepts
* most represent some consensus or convention about how a particular term is to be used

Front 15

Operational definitions

Back 15

specifies how a concept will be measured - that is, the operations we'll perform.
* achieves maximum clarity about what a concept means in a given study
* operational is nominal, not real.

Front 16

4 Levels of measurement

Back 16

Nominal
Ordinal
Interval
Ratio

Front 17

Nominal Measures

Back 17

categorizes/ offer names or labels for characteristics
ex- Gender (variable) -male and female (attributes)

Front 18

Ordinal Measures

Back 18

Categories with ranks - one is "more" than another.
ex- class year

Front 19

Interval Measure

Back 19

Meaningful distance measure
ex- Fahrenheit temp. scale, because the distance between 17 and 18 is the same as that between 89 and 90. temps are different(nominal) and one is higher than another (ordinal)

Front 20

Ratio Measures

Back 20

Highest level of measurement- based on true zero point.
ex- income,compare 2 people and can conclude
1)whether they are dif. or same.
2)whether one is more than the other.
3)how much they differ
4)what the ratio of one to another is

Front 21

Criteria of measurement

Back 21

precision and accuracy
reliability and vailidity

Front 22

Reliability and Validity

Back 22

Reliability - repeatability/will yield the same results each time, uses established measures
-Test-Retest Method(= results)
validity - are you doing what you say you're doing?
Face""- does this make sense?
Construct v""- does it relate to other variables
ex-SATs good predictor of how students perform on average

Front 23

Precision and Accuracy

Back 23

precision-how specifically you measure something
ex- "woman is 43 years old" more precise than "woman is in her 40's" precision not always necessary
Accuracy -How correct it is. Sometimes less precise means more accurate "in the ball park"

Front 24

Pretesting

Back 24

allows us to narrow down questions

Front 25

Typologies

Back 25

The classification (nominal) of observations in terms of their attributes on two or more variables.
*we try to create categories of people
*typologies can only be used as independent variables.
ex-in class exercise categorizing RU students. too many!!

Front 26

Indexes & Scales

Back 26

-most common in survey research and other quantitative methods.
-both measure variables
allow us to summarize several indicators in a single numerical score & maintain details of individual indicators

Front 27

Scales

Back 27

Verticle, Have hierarchical structure to them.
-takes advantage of differences in intensity among attributes. - identifies distinct reponses
(check box 1/2 and 1/2)
ex- no1 says "woman should not vote" and "men and women are ="

Front 28

Index

Back 28

horizontal, ordinal measure
-composite measure that summaraizes rank-orders (ordinal measures)
-point system

Front 29

Scale Construction

Back 29

offers more assurance of ordinality by tapping the intensity structures among the indicators

Front 30

Scale Types

Back 30

Bogardus
Thurstone
Semantic Differential
Likert
Guttman

Front 31

Handling Missing Data

Back 31

-is a judgment call
-sometimes make an educated guess

Front 32

Bogardus Scale

Back 32

-about prejudice, willingness of people to participate in social relations of varying degrees of closeness
-talks about physical space, we let certain people be physically closer than others
-thing dart-board (i'm center)
-how close would you let a sex offender live. Country? Neighborhood? Next door?

Front 33

Thurstone Scales

Back 33

-uses judges
ex- rate prejudice on scale 1-10.
-judge agreement between judges

Front 34

Likert Scaling

Back 34

-not used as often
"strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree"

Front 35

Semantic Differential

Back 35

-choose between two opposite
ex-
good----------------------bad
smart-------------------stupid
outgoing----------------introverted

Front 36

Guttman Scaling

Back 36

based on idea that anyone who gives a strong indicator of some variable will also give the weaker indicators.
ex-abortion (Disapprove under all circumstances, Approve under all circumstances)