Measurement
The process of precisely defining ideas and turning them into variables or dimensions
What is conceptualization?
Name categories with no logical way of ordering the categories or measuring the distance between each category
What is a nominal variable?
Describes distributions/what is happening with a single variable
What is univariate analysis?
The arithmetic average of the values on all observations
The strength of the conclusions we can draw about our research results
What is validity?
To define clearly, name, or express (measures for) a key variable or concept
What is operationalization?
Variables that have a hierarchy/order, but we cannot measure the distance between or among them
What is an ordinal variable?
Describes the relationship between three or more variables, especially examining the role of each variable
What is multivariate analysis?
How tightly (or loosely) the data are clustered around the mean
What is variance?
The degree to which inferences we have made from our study match the concepts underlying our research in the first place
What is construct validity?
A distribution that is not symmetrical – it doesn’t have “tails” at the left and right.
What is skew?
A technique by which research subjects are chosen by chance (randomly), and each subject has a known probability of being selected into the sample.
What is probability sampling?
A presentation of distributions between two or more variables as a table
What is a cross-tabulation?
The association observed in the sample data is completely due to sampling error (chance); there is no evidence of an association in the population
The extent to which the results of your study can be generalized beyond your subjects/sample
What is external validity?
The extent to which we can state accurately that the IV caused the observed effect on the DV
What is internal validity?
Income and age but not IQs or SAT scores are examples of this kind of continuous variables.
What is a ratio variable?
The convention used in sociology when it comes to statistically significant findings and the minimum p-value.
What is .05 or 5%?
The probability of the relationship being explained by chance (e.g., the likelihood that the relationship you see is actually just randomness)
What is the p-value?
The consistency of your measurement
What is reliability?
The three summary statistics that we discussed that describe the distribution of one variable
Continuous variables that are typically standardized and have no true zero point
What are interval variables?
A test statistic for tables of nominal & ordinal variables
What is a chi-squared test?
The chance that you sampled a segment of the population that is not representative of the larger population
A test statistic of differences in means for 2 samples of interval &/or ratio variables
What is a t-test?