7 Variables & Hypothesis Testing

Question 1

variable

Answer 1

• the observable characteristics of a phenomena that can take on more than one value and come from specific observations and measurements of a concept
• represents a value that can be observed, measured, and changed, and is attached to a concept(s) to measure it/them usually based on similarities

Question 2

3 components of a variable

Answer 2

• product of an observation (all variables are rooted in observation, which can take on many forms)
• measurement of a concept (can be tricky, since you have possible disagreements over concepts)
• has values that can vary when measured

Question 3

categories of variables in voter behaviour research

Answer 3

• characteristics
• actions
• attitudes

Question 4

characteristics

Answer 4

• include age, income, education level, gender, religious affiliation
• assessing such (sociodemographics) of respondents is important since they influence political attitudes

Question 5

actions

Answer 5

• include voting for a specific party, signing a petition, attending a protest, not voting
• social desirability bias could make ppl lie about their actions, but we assume they tell the truth

Question 6

attitudes

Answer 6

include support/opposition to same-sex marriage, level of moral traditionalism, or level of market liberalism

Question 7

characteristics of a hypothesis

Answer 7

• an answer to a research question
• should be based on a theory to act as a bridge to observation
• contains variables based on observation
• often makes a claim of correlation (two variables change in conjunction with each other)
• will often make a claim of causality (change in one variable creates change in another)
• allows for possibility of a null hypothesis

Question 8

null hypothesis

Answer 8

• an untrue hypothesis
• can be accepted or rejected, where rejecting it means there’s some evidence of truth to your original hypothesis
• positivists don’t reject the null but say that they have evidence it’s true

Question 9

the main objective of research

Answer 9

• to turn theory into law, whereby it’s been proven so many times to be true
• the more replicated a theory is and the more rejected the null is, the closer it becomes to being a law

Question 10

all hypotheses must have

Answer 10

• identification of a dependent variable
• identification of an independent variable(s)
• statement of a relationship between the dependent variable and independent variable(s)

Question 11

dependent variable

Answer 11

• the variable whose variation the researcher is trying to explain
• often referred to as DV, y, and is on vertical axis
• usually only one DV in a hypothesis

Question 12

independent variable

Answer 12

• what explains the observed variation in the DV or what caused the DV
• often referred to as IV, x, and always on the horizontal axis
• can be one or more IVs in a hypothesis
• several IVs that are measuring the same concept can be combined together in a single index that’s treated as a single IV

Question 13

scatterplot

Answer 13

• each dot represents a case studied and where it ends up on scores of IV and DV
• helps understand patterns in data and see relationship between the two variables
• provides evidence to (dis)prove hypothesis

Question 14

types of relationships between the IV(s) and DV

Answer 14

• positive
• negative
• no correlation

Question 15

positive relationship

Answer 15

when both IV and DV go up or down together (when they go in the same direction at the same time)

Question 16

negative relationship

Answer 16

when a higher value of one variable tends to result in a lower value of the other (when they go in diff directions)

Question 17

no correlation

Answer 17

there’s no discernible relationship between the two variables

Question 18

hypothesis testing

Answer 18

allows the researcher to observe two things, hypothesize a causal relationship between them, and actually observe if it exists and what kind