Foundations
An undeniably true statement proven through testing and observation
What is a scientific fact?
The mechanism explaining why/how the independent variable affects the dependent variable
What is the causal mechanism?
A characteristic or quality of a social actor (individual, family, class, group, region, organization, industry, ....)
What is an attribute?
Entity that carries attributes and their logical grouping
What is a variable?
A model or system or framework within which scientists think & use to understand some phenomenon.
What is a paradigm?
Representations of classes of phenomena (variables)
What is a concept?
What is the criteria for causation?
The facts to be explained (Y)
What is the dependent variable?
A systematic set of related statements that accord with a worldview
What is a theory?
Values, cultural/social norms, social structures that influence individual action
What is a social fact?
The types of entities we are analyzing
What is the unit of analysis?
Variables that are logically/ causally in-between X & Y
What is a mediator?
The properties of events, people, and things (X) – that are used to explain the dependent variables
What is an independent variable?
Devah Pager’s "The Mark of a Criminal Record" is a great example of this type of research.
What is deductive research?
Variables that alter the impact of X on Y
What is a moderator?
A dataset from one point in time.
What is cross-sectional data?
Where two variables look like they are related, but actually are caused by a different variable.
What is a spurious variable?
The relatively routine work of scientists experimenting within a paradigm.
What is normal science?
A dataset that gathers data over time but from different individuals at each point in time
What is a repeated cross-section dataset?
When we start with observations then try to identify general patterns that may build to a theory
What is inductive research?
A longitudinal dataset that gathers data from the same individuals over time.
What is panel data?
“School children with large feet are better at reading comprehension” is an example of this.
What is a spuriousness?
The hypothesis that college benefits most those who are least likely to attend college is an example of this
What is a moderator/interaction effect?
A type of research design where trained individuals are matched on all characteristics except the one being tested for discrimination.
What is an audit study?
The "too much college" hypothesis is an example of this
What is a mediator (effect)?