Module 6
The steps or procedures to identify and measure the specific variables that represent the definitions of concepts.
Operationalization
A list of elements from which a sample is to be selected.
Sampling frame
A relationship between two variables that is due to variation in a third variable
Spuriousness
Members of the treatment group change because their participation in the study makes them feel special.
Hawthorne effect
In a law enforcement survey of health risk, the variable “sick days” is measured as the number of days a police officer is recorded absent due to an illness. The level of measurement is:
Ratio
This qualitative form of measurement that typically involves categories rather than numbers.
Nominal
The distribution of characteristics of elements in a ____________________ sample is the same as the distribution of those characteristics among the total population of elements.
Representative
A set of circumstances surrounding an event or situation.
Context
When the experimental and control groups communicate and the control group gets some of the intervention, or the groups otherwise affect each other.
Contamination
Cory wrote a proposal to study the impact of birth order on aggressiveness. One of his first steps was to review definitions of aggressiveness in other research studies. This illustrates the first step in the process of:
Conceptualization
The extent to which measures indicate what they are intended to measure.
Validity
Sampling units or cases selected from the population so that every unit has the same probability or likelihood of being included in the sample.
Simple random sample
A type of longitudinal study where data are collected at two or more points in time from individuals who enter or leave defined population during specified time period
Cohort
Ability to yield valid conclusions is determined by comparability of experimental and comparison groups
Internal validity
To study organized crime, a researcher is able to interview leading members of organized crime families. During these interviews, she requests the names of leading members of other organized crime families. She interviews these other leaders, asks them for additional leaders' names, and continues in this manner until she she interviewed 45 members from 19 different families. Her sampling method is:
Snowball
The degree to which the results or scores are the same (stable) when the same instrument is administered at least twice to the same group over a period of time.
Test-retest Method
Elements such as people who are selected because they are available or easy to find.
Availability sampling
A type of longitudinal study involving examination of the same select group over time
Fixed-sample panel study
When subjects develop or change during the experiment as part of an ongoing process independent of the experimental treatment
Endogenous change
Dr. Boobear is interested in studying the prevalence of violent acts in cartoons. What is the unit of analysis?
Social artifacts
Dr. Johnson surveys college students by asking them how often they engage in binge drinking on weekends. They are asked if it happens always, often, sometimes, rarely, or never. The scale used was:
Likert
Elements are selected in two or more stages, with the first stage involving the division of the population into naturally occurring clusters, and the last stage being the random selection of clusters to form the study sample.
Cluster sampling
A researcher who draws conclusions about individual-level processes from group-level data
Ecological fallacy
Exists when a conclusion based on a sample, or subset, of a larger population holds true for that population
External validity
In medical research, the placebo effect occurs when subjects:
feel better just because they think they are being given a drug.