Scopes Quiz #1

political science

the study of political behavior that allows for a scientific approach. conclusions are drawn from human behavior and understood in personal terms

what is science?

formalized knowledge taking the form of theories, hypothesis and concepts and is cumulative.

How is science both objective and subjective?

It is objective in its methods and subjective because nothing can be proven true with absolute certainity

How is falsification used for validation?

It is used to rule out other explanations for results

What is the relationship between communication and replication?

You must be able to communicate your work for replication and thus validation

concept

a singular idea that is the most essential concept

nominal concept

concepts with a conceptual definition and are named

essential concept

concepts with a true meaning

theoretical concept

a concept that can not be understood or defined separate from the theory it’s embedded in (ex. gravity)

non-theoretical concept

concepts that assume a general meaning

How does a general concept become a specific concept?

as you add more defining charateristics the more specific a concept becomes

conceptual stretching

when you manipulate a term to fit into a concept while ignoring the core attributes of the concept. it loses its precise meaning and usefulness

particular concept

the one and only, a singularity. is identifiable because it is capitalized

universal concept

a concept with an infinite number of possibilities or members

operational definition

a clear indicator of how a conceptual variable is measured (connects the conceptual and empircal worlds)

Why do operational definitions vary more than conceptual definitions?

There is no perfect measure, sensitivity to context, surrogate measures, unobtrusive measures, improvements to measurement strategy, growing transparency in research

validity

the accuracy of a measure

threats to validity

convention measures applied inappropriately or unthinkably, available measures may not be the most appropriate or effective, over-reliance on subjective judgement

reliability

the consistency of a measurement

level of measurement

the relationship between the numbers used in a measure

characteristics of good measures

exhaustiveness and exclusivity

nominal level of measurement

the most basic category of data in statistics where variables are split into discrete, labeled groups that have no inherent order, rank, or mathematical value. logic of either.or when used to represent categories

ordinal level of measurement

numbers are used as rankings, uses the logic of more or less

interval level of measurement

increments are meaningful, there is no absolute zero, can add or subtract values

ratio level of measurement

increments are meaningful, there is an absolute zero, you can add/subtract/divide/multiple values

How do you decrease a level of measurement?

By losing information, however, you cannot move up a level by adding more informaiton.