Research Basics
This variable is the possible cause
Independent Variable
Participation in research should be ___.
Voluntary
What are the 3 requirements for causality?
Correlation, time order, nonspuriousness
What does the unit of analysis tell us in a research study?
Who or what is being studied
Deciding exactly what a concept means is called what?
Conceptualization
This variable is the outcome researchers are trying to explain.
Dependent Variable
Participants should understand the study before agreeing to participate.
Informed consent
Researchers find that more drug use is associated with more criminal behavior. Which causal requirement does this demonstrate?
Correlation
A researcher studies 50 police departments and compares their use-of-force policies. What is the unit of analysis?
Police departments
A researcher measures fear of crime by asking, “How safe do you feel walking alone in your neighborhood at night?” What process did the researcher use to turn the concept into something measurable?
Operationalization
Does drug use increase criminal behavior? Identify the IV and DV.
IV = drug use; DV = criminal behavior
What is the different between anonymity and confidentiality?
Anonymity = researchers cannot connect responses to identities; confidentiality = researchers may know identities but protect them.
To argue drug use causes crime, researchers must show drug use happened before criminal behavior. Which requirement?
Time order
A researcher collects data from people at one point in time. What type of research design is this?
Cross-sectional
A scale gives nearly the same result every time it is used. What quality does the measure have?
Reliability
What is the difference between quantitative and qualitative research?
Quantitative primarily uses numerical data; qualitative primarily uses nonnumerical data such as words, observations, or experiences.
What ethical protection means that researchers know a participant’s identity but do not reveal it to others?
Confidentiality
Drug use and crime are related, but delinquent peers may influence both. What are delinquent peers in this example?
A third variable / possible spurious explanation
A researcher collects crime data from the same cities every year for 10 years. What type of research design is this?
Longitudinal
A researcher wants to measure parental supervision but only asks whether a teenager has a curfew. What is the main concern with this measure? Why?
Validity — one question may not adequately capture the full concept of parental supervision.
A researcher predicts:
“College students who spend more time with peers who use drugs will report more frequent drug use.”
What is this specific, testable prediction called?
A hypothesis
A professor tells students they will receive extra credit only if they participate in the professor’s research study, with no alternative way to earn the points.
What is the main ethical concern?
Voluntary participation / potential coercion
A study finds that students who frequently skip school are more likely to engage in delinquency. However, the researchers measured school skipping and delinquency at the same time.
Which requirement for causality is hardest to establish?
Time order
What term refers to the person, group, organization, or other entity being studied?
Unit of analysis
What type of validity asks whether a measure covers all major parts of a concept?
Content validity