FCS 3200 EXAM 2

Andy wants to study five fifth-grade classes over three years to determine how friendship patterns are established in the fifth grade affect friendship patterns in the eighth grade. He studies the same students over time. Which design should he use?

Panel A panel study is an investigation of changes using a constant set of people and comparing each individual's opinions or behaviors at different times. In contrast, a cohort study is a form of longitudinal study (a type of observational study) that tracks the same birth cohort over time. Different from a panel study, a cohort study does not necessarily track the same individuals. In other words, the individuals examined at the two points of time may be different.

A researcher must decide in the process of operationalization:

All of these choices -how and what to measure -the range of variation to consider -the use of single or multiple indicators -what level of measurement to use

A researcher must decide in the process of operationalization:

All of these choices must be decided -how and what to measure -the range of variation to consider -the use of single or multiple indicators -what level of measurement to use

Which of the following hypotheses best fits the criteria of causality?

As education increases, income tends to increase even after controlling for gender and race.

Ruth puzzles over a report that claims that women are more likely to vote for Democrats than are men. She puzzles because her best friend, Joan, always votes Republican. Ruth is guilty of using which of the following false criteria for nomothetic causality?

Complete causation and exceptional cases There are almost always exceptional cases. As discussed, nomothetic explanation may be applicable to only a minority of cases. Think about Bill Gates and Michael Dell. They did not finish college but did really well economically. However, we know that college dropouts tend to fare worse than college graduates in the labor market. Finally, proper nomothetic explanation is probabilistic in nature and does not explain every single case.

Which of the following statements is FALSE?

Definitions are more problematic for explanatory than descriptive research Definitions can be equally problematic for explanatory and descriptive research. Without a clear and well-agreed definition, we can not properly carry out studies.

Prof. Ribar developed four aspects for her concept of happiness: engagement, trust, relationships, and accomplishment. These aspects are known as:

Dimensions A distinctive and specifiable aspect of concept

Nora has about 6 missing cases on her index of voting interest out of 1500 respondents. The best strategy for handling these missing cases would be to:

Exclude them from the construction of the index and the analysis The number of missing cases are relatively small in Nora's case. She does not have the information about why the cases are missing. Voting interest tends to change over time. Therefore, it is impractical to do follow-up studies of the missing cases.

The principle of item selection, that helps develop items with sufficient range on the variable you are measuring, is known as coefficient.

False It is known as variance. In the process of item selection, you want to ensure that items have sufficient variation. In other words, if everyone gives the same response to a particular item, then the item would have no use in constructing the scale.

Dr. Jordan chronicles people's attitudes toward an upcoming property tax levy. Jordan is clearly doing an explanatory study.

False Jordan may not be trying to explain people's attitudes.

In social science research, the unit of analysis means the same as the unit of observation.

False The unit of observation is the unit upon which one collects data, while the unit of analysis is the major entity that is being analyzed in the study. Therefore, the answer is false.

Generally, the first thing in a research proposal is the description of the subjects for study.

False An introduction should be the first thing is a research proposal, after proposal title and abstract. The description of the subjects for study .should come after the introduction.

Researchers use scales much more frequently than they use indexes.

False In theory, scales are superior to index. Scales consider the intensity structure of items and convey more information than indexes. Weights are used to differentiate the relative importance of each data item. However, indexes are much more popular in social research because scales are difficult to construct from a particular sample. In other words, there are more layers in scale construction, which makes it less practical in social science research. Index construction is more straightforward. Babbie has provided two possible reasons: 1. scales are often difficult or impossible construct from the data at hand. 2. methods of index construction seem so obvious and straightforward that they are not even discussed much in the literature. Some commonly used indexes include the Consumer Price Index (CPI), Consumer Confidence Index and S&P 500 Index.

Causal relationships can exist only if they apply in a majority of cases.

False It is a common misconception that, in order for causal relationships to be present, they must apply to the majority of cases. For instance, we say that children who are not supervised after school are more likely to become delinquent than those who are supervised are; hence, lack of supervision is a cause of delinquency. This causal relationship holds true even if a small percentage of those not supervised become delinquent. As long as they are more likely to be delinquent than those who are supervised, we say there is a causal relationship. The social science view of causation may vary from what you are accustomed to.

Quantitative, nomothetic, and structured techniques tend to be more valid, while qualitative and idiographic methods tend to be more reliable.

False Just reiterate what we have covered. A major issue in the scientific research is whether to use the nomothetic approach or the idiographic approach. The purpose of the nomothetic approach is to establish general laws and make generalizations. The focus is to obtain objective knowledge through scientific methods. Hence quantitative methods of investigation are used to produce statistically significant results. The nomothetic approach primarily rely on quantitative data. To do this, researchers carry out experiments and observe. Group averages are statistically analyzed to create predictions about people in general. An example of this is Milgrim's experiments on obedience. Despite the ethical concerns, Milgrim repeated his experiments many times and as a result created his theory of obedience. However the nomothetic approach has its limitations. It has been accused of giving a superficial understanding. For instance, in the Milgrim study, the research subjects may have displayed the same behavior, but for different reasons. It is possible that obedience was not the only answer. While the nomothetic approach tends to lead to more reliable results, we may not be able to generalize the results to everyday life. The idiographic approach, unlike the nomothetic approach, focuses on the individual. It suggests that everyone is unique and therefore everyone should be studied in an individual way. Case studies are the most common method, but other research methods include: unstructured interviews, self-reports, autobiographies and personal documents. Unlike the nomothetic approach, this provides a more complete understanding of the individual. The idiographic approach tends to generate more valid results. However, the quality of the research ultimately depends the researchers who carry out the study.

A nominal level of measurement can be represented as a ratio level of measurement, but a ratio level of measurement cannot be represented as a nominal level of measurement .

False Just reiterated what we have covered in the class. There are four measurement scales (or types of data): nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio. These are simply ways to categorize different types of variables. First, the nominal measurement is used for labeling variables, without any quantitative value. Second, the ordinal measurement provides the order of the values, but the differences between each value is not known. Third, the interval measurement provides numeric scales in which we know not only the order, but also the differences between the values. Finally, the ratio measurement provides complete information about variables and the exact value between units. Moreover, it has an absolute zero-which allows researchers to apply a wide range of both descriptive and inferential statistics. To answer this question, the opposite is true. A nominal level of measurement has less information than a ratio level of measurement. Therefore, you can use a nominal level of measurement to represent a ratio level measurement. BUT not vice versa. Here is an example. You can either define educational attainment as the number of years in school, say K- college. This would be a ratio level of measurement, since there is a true "0" in this measure. You can also define educational attainment as a series of categories such as high school graduates, those who finished elementary school but did not complete high school, and those who did not finish elementary school. You could assume that there is no rank order. Educational attainment would become a norminal measure.

Researchers ought to ignore previous work on a topic so that their research can be original.

False Researchers ought to have a good understanding of the literature relevant to the topic. One purpose is, in fact, to ensure the originality of the study.

A necessary condition represents a condition that, if it is present, will pretty much guarantee the effect in question.

False Should be "sufficient." A sufficient condition is one that, if satisfied, assures the statement's truth. A necessary condition must be there, but it alone does not provide sufficient cause for the occurrence of the event.

With the idiographic type of explanation, we try to find a few factors that can account for many of the variations in a given phenomenon.

False That is the nomothetic type of explanation.

The Bogardus social distance scale measures how much alienation people experience.

False The Bogardus Social Distance Scale measures perceptions of the social distance separating groups from one another. Emory Bogardus developed the scale in the 1920s to measure the willingness of members of one ethnic group to associate with members of another ethnic group. The scale can be used with other types of groups, including religious, political, and deviant groups.

The Thurstone scale was named after Rensis Likert.

False The Likert scale was named after Rensis Likert. The Thurstone scale was developed by Louis Leon Thurstone in 1928, as a means of measuring attitudes towards religion. In psychology and sociology, it was the first formal technique to measure an attitude. It is made up of statements about a particular issue, and each statement has a numerical value indicating how favorable or unfavorable it is judged to be. People check each of the statements to which they agree, and a mean score is computed, indicating their attitude.

Internal validation refers to the process of testing the validity of a measure, such as an index or scale, by examining its relationship to other, presumed indicators of the same variable.

False The correct answer should be external validation. Scales and indexes have to be validated. Internal validation checks the relation between the individual measures included in the scale, and the composite scale itself. External validation checks the relation between the composite scale and other indicators of the variable.

If an internal item analysis shows inconsistent relationships between the index AND the items included in the index, the conclusion to be drown would be ambiguous. However, if the index fails predict strongly the external validation items, the index is problematic.

False The first step is to test internal validity, while the second one is about external validity.

Reliability ensures validity.

False The two concepts are different. One does not ensure the other.

In the article "Study suggests link between pesticides, autism", researchers treated pesticide usage as a ratio variable.

False The variable is coded as whether a pregnant woman lived within 547 yards of fields sprayed with organochlorine pesticides during their first trimester of pregnancy. Therefore, it is an interval measure.

Index construction refers to the process of assigning scores to patterns of responses.

False There are FOUR main steps in the process of index construction, which are selecting possible items, examining their empirical relationships, scoring the index, and validating it.

It is impossible to have multiple aspects to one single concept.

False There are often multiple aspects to one concept. Therefore, it is possible to have several indicators. For example, when you do not feel well and go to see a doctor, medical professionals are likely to check multiple indicators, such as your body temperature and blood pressure. The concept here is sickness.

If two variables are correlated with each other, there must be a causal relationship between them.

False There are two other criteria for establish causality. Correlation is a necessary condition.

Explanatory research is always superior to exploratory and descriptive research, since it addresses questions of why.

False They are different types of research method. They are to accomplish different objectives. One is not necessarily superior to others.

Reliability and validity are basically the same in social science research.

False Validity is the proximity of measurement results to the true value. In contrast, reliability is the repeatability or reproducibility of the measurement. Therefore, these two terms are not the same.

Statistical correlations are a sufficient condition to establish nomothetic causality.

False While there is no causality in the absence of statistical correlations, statistical correlations alone cannot prove causality.

Which one of the following is the best example of the ecological fallacy?

Felisha studied Census tracts for her study on crime but then wrote up her conclusions in terms of individuals.

Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of a cross-sectional study?

It is easier to establish causality with a cross-sectional study than with a longitudinal study.

Matthew wanted to be particularly careful to represent all levels of feelings about how ethical members of Congress are. So, instead of just asking how much respondents agreed with a statement that "Members of Congress are ethical," he instead asked for responses ranging from "Members are completely unethical" to "Members are always very ethical." Matthew was responding to which operationalization choice?

Range of variation The answer is NOT level of measurement. The four levels of measurement are nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio. Since this is an opinion survey, the answer has to be ordinal. This is predetermined by the nature of opinion surveys. You want to ensure that there is a proper range of variation. In this case, some people might not have paid any attention to the question whether Members of Congress are ethical or not. If this is the case, the range of variation could be even larger by including "No knowledge."

Vice president of sales wishes to study the changing characteristics of customers over the past ten years. She would like to know whether current customers are more or less influenced by advertisement. You would recommend her to use a:

Trend study Trend analysis is a type of longitudinal study that examines change within a population over time. (comparison of U.S. Census over a period.)

An operational definition specifies how a concept will be measured—that is, the operations we'll perform.

True

Dimensions refer to the various aspects of a concept.

True

Explanatory research is carried out when a problem has been clearly defined, finding the relationship between variables and identify possible causal factors..

True

For an index or scale to be considered unidimensional, its component items should be indicators of only one dimension.

True

If two items are not related to one another empirically, it is unlikely that they measure the same variable.

True

In real life, it is more difficult to see if a piece of research is valid than if it is reliable.

True

Measurement is the process of observing concepts, as indicated by their operational definitions, and assigning some type of score or meaning to people's responses.

True

The coefficient of reproducibility refers to the ability of a Guttman scale to reproduce the pattern of individual responses.

True

The split-half technique for assessing reliability is closely linked to concept of the interchangeability of indicators.

True

The test-retest method assumes that the phenomena under study does not change.

True

To social science researchers, most of concepts are open to varied meanings. It is therefore important to define them properly.

True

Validity refers to the linkage between the operational and conceptual definitions.

True

Description is the purpose of research that involves describing situations and events.

True An exploratory study is often carried out for a problem that has not been clearly studied, or even well defined. It often occurs before we know enough to make conceptual definitions or posit hypotheses about the relationship between variables. A descriptive study, on the other hand, is one in which information is collected without changing the environment (i.e., nothing is manipulated). It is to describe situations and events.

In some states, only those who are age 17 and older can obtain driver license. So being age 17 and older is a necessary condition for getting a driver's license.

True Being age 17 is a necessary condition. But it is not a sufficient condition for getting a driver's license. In other words, those who are age 17 and above have to meet other requirements before they can get a driver's license.

Although it is referred to as Likert scaling, to call it a scale is really a misnomer.

True According to Babbie, Likert created a technique for combining the items into scale. However, Likert's scaling technique is rarely used today, his answer FORMAT is one of the most widely used in survey research. In the vast majority of cases, Likert scaling refers to the format instead of scaling. As discussed in the class, it is often involved in research that employs questionnaires. It is perhaps the most widely used approach to scaling responses in survey research. Is the result ordinal or interval? It would be "in between" ordinal and interval in a question using a five-point likert scale with values "strongly agree", "agree", "neutral", "disagree" and "strongly disagree". If we cannot be sure that the intervals between each of these five values are the same, then we would not be able to say that this is an interval variable, but we would say that it is an ordinal variable. However, in order to be able to use statistics that assume the variable is interval, we assume that the intervals are equally spaced.

Predictive validity is often used as another term for criterion-related validity.

True As discussed before,criterion-related validity is based on some external criterion.

Construct validity is not the same as predictive validity.

True Construct validity is the degree to which a measure relates to other variables, as expected within a system of theoretical relationships. It is based on the logical relationship among variables. In contrast, predictive validity, sometimes also called criterion-related validity, is based on some external criterion. For instance, the validity of SAT is shown in its ability to predict students' success in college. The validity of driver's license test depends on the driver's subsequent driving record. In these two cases, college success and driving ability are the criteria.

A major characteristic of exploratory studies is that they seldom provide satisfactory answers to research questions.

True Exploratory research normally involves collecting information and developing ideas about a relatively under-researched issue or context. So it rarely addresses specific research questions.

The article "House Prices and Subprime Mortgage Delinquencies" is an example of the nomothetic approach, because it is to establish general rules of behaviour to be applied to large populations.

True It is a nomothetic study and quantitative in nature. It seeks to establish causal relationships that are assumed to happen in many cases. The study allows some generalization.

The only feature differentiating from the interval measurement is that the ratio measurement has a true zero.

True It is the ratio measure that has a true zero. Just reiterated what we have covered in the class. There are four measurement scales (or types of data): nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio. These are simply ways to categorize different types of variables. First, the nominal measurement is used for labeling variables, without any quantitative value. Second, the ordinal measurement provides the order of the values, but the differences between each value is not known. Third, the interval measurement provides numeric scales in which we know not only the order, but also the differences between the values. Finally, the ratio measurement provides complete information about variables and the exact value between units. Moreover, it has an absolute zero-which allows researchers to apply a wide range of both descriptive and inferential statistics.

Item analysis is an assessment of whether each of the items included in a composite measure makes an independent contribution or merely duplicates the contribution of other items in the measure.

True Item analysis is an important first step in validating the index.

The purpose of multivariate analysis in index construction is to discover the simultaneous interaction of the items to determine whether they are all appropriate for inclusion in the same index.

True Multivariate analysis is the analysis of the simultaneous relationships among several variables. If two items are highly correlated, then they may not be included in the same index.

In creating the nominal level of measurements, the two criteria for classification are exhaustiveness and mutual exclusiveness.

True Nominal measures differentiate between items or subjects based on on their names, categories, or other qualitative classifications they belong to. Therefore, they have to be exhaustive and mutually exclusive.

Semantic differential asks respondents to choose between two opposite positions on various dimensions.

True The Semantic Differential (SD) measures people's reactions to stimuli in terms of ratings on bipolar scales defined with contrasting adjectives at each end.

Generally, a composite measure should represent only one dimension of a concept.

True The process is called scale and index construction. Unidimensionality is an important characteristics of the process. For instance, according to Babbie, items reflecting religious fundamentalism should not be included in a measure of political conservatism, even though the two variables might be empirically related to each other.

Both index and scale are ordinal and unidimensional.

True There is no true 0 in index or scale. They ought to be uni-dimensional, that is a composite measure should reflect only one dimension of a concept.

In the eyes of social science researchers, the ratio measurement is almost always more preferable than the nominal measurement.

True This is because it provides more information to the researchers.

Scale scores convey more information than index scores.

True This is because scale accounts for the relative intensity of various items.

Unless there are compelling reasons to the contrary, items should be equally weighted in index scoring.

True This is part of index scoring. You must first decide the desirable range of the index scores. Then you have to assign scores to each response. According to Babbie, equal weighting should be the norm.

Typologies are typically nominal composite measures, dealing with more than one dimension.

True Typology refers to the classification (typical nominal) of observations in terms of their attributes on two or more variables. The classification of newspapers as liberal-urban, liberal-rural, conservative-urban, or conservative-rural would be an example. Typology is an important concept when there are multiple dimensions to a concept. Let us use the political orientation case in a slightly different way. Voters tend to be described as conservative or liberal in their political views. In this case, political orientation is treated as a single dimension variable. However, some liberals may have very conservative views on certain issues, such as abortion. Some conservatives might have very liberal views on some issues, such as the legalization of marijuana and the legalization of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. Therefore, researchers have to rely on typologies to describe the multidimensional nature of the variable--political orientation.

The whole point of scoring is to create a single composite index out of several items.

True When you have chosen the best items for your index, your next step is to assign scores for particular responses, thereby creating a single composite measure out of the several items. Put simply, researchers create indexes and scales to (1) quantify and (2) simplify. Both indexes and scales are composite measures, meaning that the measurements are based on multiple data items. There are important differences. Scales are constructed by assigning scores to patterns of responses. Weights are used to differentiate the relative importance of each data item.

When a researcher is faced with the question from whom or what will the information be gathered, that researcher is dealing with which aspect of the research design process?

Units of analysis The process may not always be linear. Researchers may go back and forth during the process.

Criminologist Jason Wade found that 19% of boys compared with 7% of girls report they had stolen something worth between $2 and $50. This indicates that there is likely_______________ between gender and self-reported theft.

an association Most likely an association based on limited information.

Jan has compiled a list of 20 indicators of prejudice and its dimensions. She finds that women are more prejudiced than men on some of the indicators but not on others. Sarah should

check to see if the two sets of indicators represent different dimensions of prejudice. The process is called conceptualization through which researchers give definite meaning to a concept by specifying one or multiple indicators in mind. People may disagree about certain aspect of the concept in the process. If there are systematic differences in the understanding, in this case, bewteen men and women, then researchers should consider whether there is more than one dimension to the concept. A complete concepturalization includes both specifying dimensions and identifying the varous indicators for each.

In social science research, the process of coming to an agreement about what terms mean is:

conceptualism

Reliability assessment is a matter of checking for __________, while validity assessment is a matter of checking for __________.

consistency; accuracy TS: 2

Which of the following three criteria are necessary to establish nomothetic causality?

correlation, time order, and nonspurious. Idiographic causality is strictly used for qualitative methods. Different from nomothetic causality which is relevant to a broad population, idiographic causality is about individuals. A good example would be someone's biography or personal narrative or the history of events.

Julius wanted to validate his measure of driver awareness. He did so by checking with the Utah Department of Motor Vehicles a few years after giving his measure to young drivers to see how many tickets they had received. Which method of validity does this example reflect?

criterion Criterion validity is a measure of how well one variable or set of variables predicts an outcome based on information from other variables. The time dimension is important in this concept.

In which of the following methods, data are gathered essentially at one particularly point of time?

cross-sectional

Kathy studies the homeownership attainment of immigrants at a particular point of time. To increase the sample size, she collects data in three consecutive years and pool all the data together in her analysis. Which design should she use?

cross-sectional Please go to page 101. First, we can easily get rid of "panel" and "retrospective" designs. Since the study does not track any individual cohort or specific sub-population over time, it is not a "cohort" study. Then we have two choices left, which are "cross-sectional" and "trend." The study is not longitudinal in nature because it does not observe the same phenomenon over an extended period of time. Moreover, the purpose of pooling the data was to increase the sample size rather than to observe changes over time. Finally, the researcher tries to study immigrants at one particular point of time. Therefore it is a cross sectional study. In this case, the three year period is considered as one point of time in the study. Sometimes, the sample data collected at one time period is too small. Researchers have to pool several periods of data together to have a proper sample size. That is the purpose of pooling the data.

Which of the following data is the most difficult to use to establish causal relationships?

cross-sectional While it is easy to establish correlations and even associations, it is hard to detect the time sequence of events using the cross-sectional approach. Therefore, it is difficult to rely on the cross-sectional approach to causal relationships.

The topic of surrogate mothers interested Professor Snyder, even though he had little knowledge about the topic. Snyder read the available materials on the topic and wanted to develop an age, education, and income profile of women who serve as surrogate mothers in the United States. To develop this profile, Snyder should undertake a(n):

descriptive study

Both scales and indexes are which level of measurement?

ordinal There is no true zero. There are however differences in ranking.

Andrew wants to study poverty and see if age is a major variable associated with poverty. Which unit of analysis should he use?

individuals Individual household is the unit of analysis in this case. The unit of analysis is the major entity that is being analyzed in a study. It is the 'what' or 'who' that is being studied. The study attempts to understand the differences between individuals of the groups.

In the article "Inclusion of Immigrant Status in Smoking Prevalence Statistics", the unit of analysis is:

individuals Researchers are examining the differences in smoking prevalence using CPS data. It is stated in the paper that "the CPS is a national survey of the US civilian population 15 years and older conducted monthly by the Census Bureau for the Bureau of Labor Statistics." Therefore the unit of observation is at the individual level. So is the unit of analysis.

In the article "Study suggests link between pesticides, autism", the unit of analysis is:

individuals The study is based on individuals. It looks at the individual woman who has been exposed to pesticides and examines how the risk of giving birth to an autistic child is different from those who were not exposed to pesticides. "Women who live near California farm fields sprayed with organochlorine pesticides may be more likely to give birth to children with autism..."

Ken used IQ in his study of K-12 education outcomes. What is the level of measurement of IQ?

interval Essentially, interval data are ordinal, but they have an extra property - the ability to add and subtract measurements. In interval data, the gaps between the numbers are comparable, unlike with ordinal data. Any interval has the same meaning regardless of its location on the scale. "X is five inches longer than Y" has meaning regardless of the values of X and Y. However, ratios are meaningless on an interval scale because an interval scale has no true zero. Temperature scales (Celsius and Fahrenheit) are an example of this. Zero degrees Fahrenheit does not mean the total absence of temperature. Furthermore, if it is 80 degrees outside today and it was only 40 degrees outside yesterday we cannot say that today is twice as hot as yesterday. In short, if the data can be ordered and the arithmetic difference is meaningful, then the data are at least interval data. In this case, IQ is numeric data expressed in intervals using a fixed measurement scale. For instance, someone with an IQ of 140 is NOT twice as intelligent as someone with an IQ of 70. Another case is your SAT or ACT score.

Classifying someone as a "resident" of Utah or "non-resident" treats residency as:

it depends on the research design it can be nominal or ordinal

Kate measured class level of students at her university, which has graduate programs, with these attributes: first-year, sophomore, junior, and senior. Which quality of measures does her variable lack?

must be exhaustive

When the variable religious affiliation is classified as Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish, this variable has the important quality of being:

mutually exclusive These options are not exhaustive or comprehensive, since many religions are not included. They are mutually exclusive, because they are not interchangeable. They are nominal measures and not ordinal, because there is not an order among these options.

Which one of the following represents a condition that must be present for the effect to follow?

necessary cause

For a nomothetic causal relationship to exist, there must be evidence:

of an empirical correlation between the variables, one variable precedes the other in time, and a third variable did not cause the changed observed in the first two variables

Suppose a survey item asks someone if something is very important, somewhat important, not very important, or unimportant. This is an example of what level of measurement?

ordinal

We study how much time you spend on studying each day, measured in hours and minutes. The measure is

ratio A ratio scale possesses a meaningful (unique and non-arbitrary) zero value.

Professor Yu gave an exam on Monday. On Tuesday and Wednesday he gave the same class the same exam. Professor Yu was clearly interested in assessing the exam's:

reliability

A researcher would like to examine the differences in crime rates among Salt Lake City neighborhoods. The unit of analysis would be:

social groups Neighborhoods are considered as social groups. The unit of analysis in this case can also be geography.

The ___________ of concepts in scientific inquiry depends on nominal and operational definitions?

specifications TS:2

Jen used her twelve-item scale on happiness to see how separate sets of six indicators correlated with each other. Which type of reliability is reflected in this example?

split-half The split-half method breaks a scale in half and uses each half to independently verify the other.

There are two variables. One is called the dependent variable while the other is called the independent variable. When an observed relationship between the two variables disappears when a third variable is controlled and when this third variable has a causal relationship with the dependent variable, the relationship is said to be:

spurious Think about the example in the textbook—the relationship between ice-cream consumption and drowning. Does ice-cream consumption cause drowning? Once we control for temperature (think about ice-cream consumption and drowning within a certain temperature range), the relationship disappears. In other words, there is a spurious relationship between the two variables. High temperature is the likely cause of both high ice cream consumption and drowning.

A __________ represents a condition that, if present, guarantees the effect in question.

sufficient cause

Elena learned from her political science professor that most rich people vote Republican. She also learned the one of the world richest individuals—Warren Buffet always voted for Democrats. She then concluded that her political science professor was wrong. What mistake did she most likely make?

the assumption of complete causation Proper nomothetic explanation is probabilistic in nature and does not necessarily explain every single case. Exceptions do not disprove nomothetic explanation. In fact, causal relationships may exist even if they are only observed in a minority of cases.

If a researcher were conducting a study of women's attitudes toward happiness, the unit of analysis would be:

the individual

Sydney wanted to analyze the intersection between two variables-school type (public or private) and school location (urban or rural) - in her study of student values. Which approach should she use?

typology Typology is the answer, because it is the classification (typical nominal) of observations in terms of their attributes on two or more variables. The classification of newspapers as liberal-urban, liberal-rural, conservative-urban, or conservative-rural would be an example.

Reliability involves

whether a particular technique applied repeatedly to the same object would yield the same results each time High reliability means that the same data would have been collected each time in repeated observations of the same phenomenon.

The main reason you need to know the level of measurement for your variables is so that:

you will know which statistics to use.