soc 311 exam 2

what is conceptualization

the process of precisely identifying ideas and turning them into variables

what are the levels of conceptualization

1. concept in hypothesis

2. dimension

3. variable

4. indicator

does the process of conceptualization moves to general to specific?

yes

what is operationalization?

the process of linking the conceptualized variables to a set of procedures to measure them

what is a concept

an idea that can be named, defined, and eventually measured in some way. not every concept has just one accepted definition

what is a variable?

dimensions that capture different dimensions, categories, or levels of a concept.

• variables must vary, so they must convert concepts into data points that can be compared

• this is the start of turning abstract concepts into concrete measures

what is an unit of analysis

the entity being studied

what is a dimension?

the different manifestations of the idea

what is a categorical variable?

a finite set of possible values with no known distance in between values. this form of variable includes nominal and ordinal variables

what is a continuous variable

an infinite set of possible values with a fixed distance in between them. This form of variable includes interval and ratio variables

what is a nominal variable?

catalog statuses that are are parallel and can NOT be rank (cases that are categorized but not ranked)

• examples: race, school sector

what is an ordinal variable ?

categories that are ranked but the distance is unknown (these categories represent more or less but we do not know much more or less)

• ex: clothing sizes, scales of agree of disagree, likert scales

what are the two conditions for nominal variables

• all categories should be different

• and should cover all possibilities

what is an interval variable?

a continuous amount of variables with meaningful distances but NO true zero

(can be compared directly but cannot be used in math equations)

• examples: SAT scores, temperature

what are ratio variables?

these are interval variables that DO have a true zero

• example: school size, income of U.S. dollar

what is an indicator

values assigned to a variable that provides the blueprint for measurement

• example: length between birth to puberty

what are the mismatches of unit of analysis

ecological fallacy and reductionism

what is an ecological fallacy

a mistake researchers make by drawing conclusions of about micro levels based on macro levels

what is reductionism

a mistake researchers make when drawing conclusions macro level unit based on micro level data

what does aggregated mean

when individual level-data is often added together

how do quantitative researchers view operatationalization?

its the end result of the conceptualization process

how do qualitative researchers view operationalization?

they start with a more open conceptualization process and use operationalization to refine the process

what is reliability?

a quality measure of how dependable it is

what is validity

a quality of measure of how concerning accurate it is

what causes unreliability?

memory, confusing survey questions

what is a composite variable?

variables that average a set of items to measure the concept

Cronbach’s alpha

a straightforward calculation that measures a specific kind of reliability for composite

• the conventional standard in social standard is 0.7

what is intercoder reliability ?

reveals how different coders or observers agree with one another when looking at the same data

what is internal validity

the degree to which the study establishes a casual effect of the independent variable on the dependent variable, for measuring it is depicting the degree to which the measures truly and accurately captures the concepts

what is face validity

a dimension concerning measure looks valid

what is criterion-related validity

it concerns with how closely a measure is associated with some other factor

what are the two types of criterion-related validity

1. concurrent validity: is how closely the measure is related to a preexisting measure

2. predictive validity: is how closely correlated a measure is with something it should be correlated with

what is content validity?

concerns how well a measure encompasses the many different meanings of a single concept

what is a external validity?

concerns the degree to which the results of a study can generalize beyond the study — “how real is the study”

what are threats to validity?

• history

• maturation

• testing

what is a census

a study that does data on every member of the population rather than only a sample

what is a population perimeter?

a number that characterizes some quantitative aspect of the population

what is a nonprobability sample?

a sample that is not drawn using a method of random selection

what is margin of error

the amount of uncertainty in an estimate, this is equal to the distance between the estimate and the boundary of the confidence interval

what is a sampling distribution

a set of estimates that would be observed from a large number of independent samples that are all the same size and drawn from the same method

what are confidence levels

the probability that an estimate includes the population parameter

what is sampling frame

a list of population members from which a population sample is drawn

what is systematic sampling

a probability sampling strategy in which sample members are selected by using a fixed interval

what is stratified sampling

members of a population are put into groups and THEN are strategically picked

what is purposive sampling

sampling strategy in which cases are selected on the basis of features that distinguish them from other cases

what is sequential sampling

enables researchers to make decisions about what additional data to collect based on their findings from data they’ve already collected