Chapter 5 pt 2

Question 1

precision

o

Answer 1

precision
o How fine you will make distinctions among the various possible attributes composing a given variable
o Ex; does it matter is someone is 17 or 18 years old
 Could you group them together

Question 2

levels of measurement

Answer 2

o Nominal measures
 Variables whose attributes have only the characteristic of exhaustiveness and mutual exclusiveness
 Ex; gender, birthplace, major, hair colour, political party
 Are names or labels for characteristic
o Ordinal measures
 Variables with attributes we can logically rank or order
 Ex: social class, IQ
 Can say one is more conservative than another
o Interval measures
 Actual distance separating those attributes does have meaning
 Ex: temperature, IQ score
o Ratio measures
 Attributes have all the qualities of nominal, ordinal and interval
 Starts at 0
 Ex: # of Tim Hortons customer in the past two months
 Kelvin temperature scale
 Comparing two people using ratio allows
• To see if they are different or the same
• On is more than the other
• How much they differ

Question 3

• Accuracy

Answer 3

o Correctness of measurement

Question 4

Reliability

Answer 4

• Is a matter of whether a particular technique applied again and again will give the same results each time
• Does not ensure accuracy
  o As something could still be wrong

Question 5

• How to create reliable measures

Answer 5

o Test-retest method
 Should take and retake the same measurement more than once
 Ex: do questionnaire then do another one 3 months later
o Split-half method
 Randomly assign has to one and half to other to see if same response
o Using- established measures

Question 6

Validity

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Answer 6

Extent to which empirical measure adequately reflects the real meaning of the concept under consideration

Question 7

types of validity

Answer 7

o Face validity
 Quality of indicatory makes it seem a reasonable measure of some variable that the frequency of attendance at religious services is some indication of a persons religiosity has face validity
o Criterion related validity
 Degree to which measure relates with some external criterion
 Ex; jobs have exams that predict future evaluations of individuals job performance

Question 8

• Indicators

Answer 8

o Empirical specification of some obstruct concept
 Intend to capture the meaning of a concept and if a concept is rich with meaning multiple indicators are likely necessary
 Ex: indicators of happiness
• Using more shows more richness

Question 9

Index

Answer 9

• Index
  o Is constructed by combining multiple items that when aggregated are intended to represent some more general dimensions
  o Used more than scales
   Dimensions
  • Specifiable aspect or facet of a concept

Question 10

Scale

Answer 10

• Scale

o Measure composed of several item that have a logical or empirical structure among them

Question 11

Index and Scale common

Answer 11

both are ordinal measures of variables