20382472
Description
Flashcards by Alexandru Sandor, updated more than 1 year ago
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Created by Alexandru Sandor
about 5 years ago
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| Question | Answer |
| What are concepts in social science ? | - express common elements in the world => we give them names - Specify what we mean when we use particular terms in research (What do we mean, when talking about XY?) |
| What is the issue with concepts ? | Most concepts are not directly observable (e.g power, poverty, prejudice) |
| What is a conceptual definition ? | Tells you what the concept means ! |
| What is the operational definition of a concept ? | Choice of what empirical observation methods should measure the concept of interest ! |
| What is Measurement ? | According to Maxim (1999) it is a process of mapping empirical phenomena with using system of numbers => assignment of numerical values to empirical properties according to predefined rules (e.g translating the results of a survey in numerical data) |
| Why is measurement important ? | 1. translate theory into reality 2. make causal generalisable statements 3. experiments without would be problematic 3. systematic comparison 4. comparison across time & space |
| What is the definition of a variable ? | "Measurement of a characteristic of a subject that varies across subject in a population" (e.g. Hair colour, income) |
| What is a dependent variable why do we call it "dependent variable" ? | - a variable, that changes in response to changes of other variables - called dependent, because it is dependent from the change of the independent variable ! |
| What is a independent variable ? | A variable that influences the value of another variable ! |
| What is a intervening variable ? | - hypothetical variable, used to explain causal links => provides a link between dependent & independent variable ! |
| How/ Why do we use intervening variables ? | 1. allows us to answer more RQ in one experiment 2. allows us the answer of the question whether one IV depends from another IV (=>interaction between variables) |
| Give some examples of different variables ! | 1. Simple descriptive concepts => e.g Age, gender, income 2. Latent variables => Ideology, social class, party identification |
| What is a latent variable & what does it represent ? | 1. represent concepts 2. is a variable that is inferred using models from observed data/ variables |
| What are the different levels of measurement ? | 1. Nominal/ Categorical 2. Ordinal 3. Interval/ Ratio |
| What is a Nominal/ Categorical variable ? + examples ! | - variable with mutually exckulsive set of discrete categories e.g. war, religion, party support - no meaningful ranking => no ranking possible, that would make sense (one religion is not better than the other) - not ordered/ ranked |
| What are Ordinal variable ? + examples ! | - variable with ordered/ ranked categories - religiosity, social class |
| What are Intervall/ Ratio variables ? | - variable with meaningful intervals between units of measurement - e.g temperature, years (Interval) => abitrary neutral point age, income (Rational) => neutral point chosen from specific reasons |
| What are the different levels of measurement ? | 1. Individual 2. State level 3. System level 4. Aggregate level |
| What is the individual level of analysis ? | It focuses on the choices, perceptions and personalities of individuals |
| What is the state level of analysis ? | It includes factors such as political institutions, interest groups |
| What is the system level of analysis ? | It includes attributes of the international system e.g states in Europe |
| What is the aggregate level of analysis ? | It consists different data combine from different measurements |
| What are the Problems we encounter with measurement ? | 1. All measurement lead to error => conceptional clarity: income as a indicator of wealth (not everywhere!) 2. Accuracy => Systematic measurement error (sensible questions; probably biased then!) 3. How precise can political measurement be ?! 4. Availability |
| What is the major difference between a hypothesis & theory ? | 1. Hypothesis: Potential explanation or guess 2.Theory: Tool to explain something that has been verified over and over as true |
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