EPR Week 3

Questão	Responda
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

Próximo

Descrição

Resumo de Recurso

Semelhante

	Criado por Alexandru Sandor quase 5 anos atrás