Term
| Identify two key aspects of quantitative research. |
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Definition
| Quantitative research attempts to focus on what is true, NOT what should be true. Focuses on associations between variables. Focuses on tendencies, not absolutes. Deals with numbers – percentages, averages, and other statistics. |
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Term
| What does it mean to say that gender is associated with delinquency? |
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Definition
| It means that knowledge of a person’s gender allows us to predict how delinquent they are. |
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Term
| What are the four components of a research question? |
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Definition
| Question word, independent variable, either association or cause, and a dependent variable. |
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Term
| What are two examples of quantitative data? |
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Definition
| Survey data and official government statistics. |
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Term
| What are variables? What must a variable consist of? |
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Definition
| Variables are collections of characteristics that describe people, groups or things. Of course, a variable must vary, so a variable must consist of at least two characteristics. |
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Term
| What is an independent variable? |
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Definition
| The independent variable is the actual or supposed cause. The independent variable is the thing we are using to explain something. |
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Term
| What is a dependent variable? |
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Definition
| The dependent variable is the thing we are trying to explain. The dependent variable is the effect or outcome. The dependent variable depends on the independent variable. |
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Term
| Scientists investigate why heart disease is more prevalent among blacks than among whites. What’s the independent variable in the study? What’s the dependent variable in the study? |
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Definition
| Independent variable: race (black/white). Dependent variable: (whether the person has heart disease or not) |
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Term
| If the independent variable in a study is marital status -- married or single -- and the dependent variable is happiness, what might be the research question? |
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Definition
| The research could be: is marital status associated with happiness? (In other words, are married people happier than single people?) |
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Term
| John studies whether crime across cities varies by the size of the city. He compares LA to NYC to DC. What are the units of analysis in his study? |
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Definition
| The units of analysis or cases are cities. |
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Term
| Peter studies what aspects of pitches in baseball are most likely to lead to strike-outs. What are the units of analysis in Peter’s study? |
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Definition
| The units of analysis (or cases) in Peter’s study are the pitches. |
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Term
| Say we want to know whether someone is a problem drinker. Think of one way to operationalize “problem drinking”? |
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Definition
| Answers can vary, but should generally involve one or several survey questions asking people about their drinking habits. For example, one might ask a question along the lines of “In the last 30 days, did you find yourself in a situation in which you did something while you had been drinking which you later regretted?” |
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Term
| Peter studies what aspects of pitches in baseball are most likely to lead to strikes. What is the dependent variable in Peter’s study? |
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Definition
| The dependent variable is whether there was a strike or not (for each pitch). |
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Term
| What’s the best way to determine whether X actually causes Y? |
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Definition
| The best way to determine whether X causes Y is to do an experiment in which we randomly assignment X. |
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Term
| Research has shown that people with college degrees live longer than people who don't have college degrees. Does this mean that having a college degree causes people to live longer? |
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Definition
| Not necessarily. In order to say that getting a college degree causes people to live longer, we have to establish that there isn't a third variable that causes people to get college degrees AND causes people to live longer, which, when controlled, eliminates the association between college and longevity. |
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Term
| How would you define the population in the context of social science research methods? |
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Definition
| The population refers to the group of people about which the study is attempting to generalize. |
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Term
| In court, are white juries less likely be sympathetic to the defendant when the defendant is black? According to a recent study on jury trials in Florida, the answer to this question is yes. What are the independent and dependent variables in this study? |
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Definition
| The independent variable is the racial make-up of the jury (how many whites, how many blacks on the jury). The dependent variable is whether the jury decides to convict or acquit the defendant. |
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Term
| What does conceptualization mean in the context of social research? |
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Definition
| Conceptualization is a process of defining very precisely the phenomena that you are trying to measure. If we want to study religiosity, we would want to define what exactly we meant by religiosity. In this way, we would conceptualize religiosity. |
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Term
| What does operationalization mean in the context of social research? |
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Definition
| Operationalization describes the process creating or finding survey questions that measure abstract concepts. We can operationalize religion in terms of answers to the question “What is your religion?” |
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Term
| Is it a good idea to stretch before you run (or jog), in order to reduce the risk of injury? A recent study showed no effect of stretching on injury. Over a three month period, the researchers found that runners who stretched before they ran were just as likely to get injured as runners who didn’t stretch at all. What’s the independent variable in this study? And the dependent variable? |
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Definition
| The independent variable is whether the person stretched or didn’t stretch. The dependent variable is whether the person experienced an injury or not. |
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Term
| Identify the independent and dependent variables in these research questions: Does money make people happy? Do rich people tend to be happier than poor people? |
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Definition
| The independent variable is the amount of money someone has. The dependent variable is how happy a person is. |
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Term
| Take the research question: Is married life happier than single life? What is the independent variable? And the dependent variable? |
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Definition
| The independent variable is marital status (married/unmarried). The dependent variable is level of happiness. |
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Term
| What does it mean to say that variable X is associated with variable Y? |
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Definition
| It means that knowledge of X allows us to predict Y more accurately. |
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Term
| Abstract. Does the color of what you wear matter on a date? In a recent experiment, psychologists examined whether men responded differently to a female conversation partner when she was wearing a red shirt, relative to when she was wearing a green shirt. They found that men were more likely to ask intimate questions and were more likely to sit closer to women who wore red than women who wore green. What are the independent and dependent variables? |
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Definition
| The independent variable is the color of the shirt that the female participant is wearing (red or green). The dependent variables include: (1) whether the male asks more intimate questions of the female and (2) how close the male sits to the female. |
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Term
| Some researchers have argued that people are less likely to get married in a bad economy than in a good economy. But recent research suggests this isn’t true. What are the independent and dependent variables in this research? |
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Definition
| The independent variable is how bad or good the economy is. The dependent variable is whether a couple decides to get married or not. |
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Term
| What is the key feature of an experiment? |
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Definition
| In an experiment, the independent variable is randomly assigned. |
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Term
| What are the three criteria necessary to establish that X causes Y? |
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Definition
| X is associated with Y. X comes before Y. There is no third (confounding) variable that causes both X and Y and explains away the relationship between them. |
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Term
| What is a mediating variable? |
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Definition
| If some variable X causes another variable Y, a mediating variable is one reason why X causes Y. |
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Term
| What is a confounding variable? |
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Definition
| A confounding variable causes X and Y to be associated even though X doesn't cause Y. |
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Term
| Ice cream consumption is associated with the number of crimes on a given day. What's the confounding variable? |
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Definition
| Temperature causes BOTH ice cream consumption and crime. Temperature is the confounder. |
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Term
| If we want to know whether X causes Y, why are non-experimental (observational) studies not as good as experiments? |
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Definition
| In observational studies, there may be confounding variables that cause X and Y to be associated even though X doesn't cause Y. Experiments, through random assignment of the independent variable, reduce or eliminate the influence of confounding variables. |
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