Basics Flashcards
What is a case?
A case is a bounded unit of analysis I.e an individual person, a group, organisation, area or region
What is a dependent variable?
The variable we are trying to measure through manipulation of the independent variable
Independent variable
The variable we are manipulating to measure the dependent variable
Internal validity
The extent to which we can say the dependent variable was not affected by any variable other than the independent variable
Measurement validity
Do the measures effectively grasp the concepts we are trying to measure? (I.e asking if something is good or being more specific such as asking is it helpful or friendly)
What are the 3 main basic classifications of statistics?
Descriptive statistics
Inferential statistics
Explanatory statistics
What are descriptive statistics
descriptive statistics summarise the data by indicating how frequent and how typical or atypical particular qualities are (I.e characteristics of a population via organising and summarising data)
Which type of data determines if the sample is normally distributed (I.e symmetrical skewness/ bell curve)
Descriptive statistics
What are inferential statistics used for
Use sample data to draw conclusions about the population
What type of statistic uses probability to determine how confident we can be that the conclusions we made are correct (I.e confidence intervals & margins or error)
Inferential
What type of statistic organises and summarises data using numbers and graphs
Descriptive statistics
How do descriptive statistics summarise data?
Bar graphs, histograms, pie charts etc. Looks at the shape of the graph and skewness
What are explanatory statistics
Statistics which identify patterns in data which might imply casual relations between one factor and another
What are concepts?
The building blocks of theory, they represents points around which the research is constructed (e.g through a concept like social mobility we notice that some people improve their socio-economic position relative to their parents)
What are measurements?
Measurements allow us to outline fine differences between people in terms of the characteristics over time, allowing us to see how consistent we are with other researchers and how consistent we are over time
What is a likert scale?
A likert scale is a multiple indicator or multiple item measure of a set of attitudes relating to a specific idea with the goal of measuring intensity of feelings regarding the area in question, each respondents reply is scored on strength of emotion
What does reliability refer to?
The consistency of a measure of a concept
What does validity refer to?
Whether an indicator that is devised to gauge a concept really measures that concept
What is the operationalisation process?
The process of defining measures for your concepts
I.e concept > operationalisation > measurement
What are the levels of measurement variables are defined by?
Nominal, ordinal or scale (interval/ ratio)
What is a variable?
A variable is a measurable characteristic or quality of a case such as socioeconomic background, hours of study per week etc.,
What is the nominal level of measurement
- values in independent categories with no order (I.e gender, ethnicity)
What is the ordinal level of measurement?
Values categorised with in exact differences (I.e attitude scale agree/ disagree or age group under 18, 18-50, 50+
What is the scale level of measurement?
Values with exact and real numbers which measure something I.e an exact number of age in years
What type of statistic is basic quantitative analysis concerned with summarising data though?
Descriptive statistics
What levels of variable measurement can we summarise data using percentages
Categorical (nominal or ordinal)
What is the relative frequency
The relative frequency refers to the percentage or proportion of times that a given variable occurs within a set of numbers, such as in the data recorded for a variable in a survey data set
- e.g the variable we are measuring is socioeconomic background, if 30% of respondents are from a lower socioeconomic background, that is the relative frequency
Mode
Most commonly occurring value
Median
Middle values when all values ordered low to high
Mean
The arithmetically derived average value
