Lecture 6

Question 1

Measurement (operationalization)

Answer 1

Turning abstract conceptual variables into measurable observations

Question 2

How do you assess, and ensure, the quality of a studys measurement instruments?

Answer 2

Measurement reliability and measurement validity. In evaluating a measurement instrument, you always need to consider both. When a measure satisfies both criteria, we say it has construct validity

Question 3

The term measurement reliability refers to

Answer 3

The degree to which multiple measurements give the same result

Question 4

Validity refers to

Answer 4

The degree to which the scores on a measure represent the variable they are intended to

Question 5

How can you assess or demonstrate the reliability of measures?

Answer 5

You should think about the different ways in which you can repeat your measure to see if the results are similar

Question 6

Test-retest reliability

Answer 6

Test-retest reliability is the degree of agreement between the results when the same measure is repeated sometime later (under the same conditions)

Question 7

Inter-rater reliability

Answer 7

Inter-rater reliability is the degree of agreement between the results when (at least) two people (raters) administer the measure to the same subject (under the same conditions)

Question 8

Internal consistency

Answer 8

Internal consistency is the degree of agreement between the different questions (also refered to as items) of a single measurement instrument

Question 9

Cronbachs alpha is

Answer 9

A statistic derived from pairwise correlations between the items in a measure that are supposed to measure the same construct

Question 10

Cronbachs alpha (formula)

Answer 10

Cronbachs alpha = k/k-1 * (Sum of covariances/sum of variances and covariances)

Question 11

Proxy

Answer 11

indirect measure of the desired construct that is closely related to the construct

Question 12

Internal validity

Answer 12

Refers to what extent a study can eliminate alternative explanations for the association(s) / causal effect(s) it reports

Question 13

Confounding

Answer 13

Refers to a situation in which third factors come into play that influences the outcome of a study. In short, you can only be confident that your study is internally valid if you can rule out alternative explanations for your findings

Question 14

internal validity

Answer 14

The extnet to which youre able to say that no other variable apat from the independent variable caused a change in the dependent variable

Question 15

External validity

Answer 15

Refers to how well the findings of a study are generalizable to a wider population

In particular, do the findings generalize:
To other subjects (e.g. from the people, firms etc. in your sample population

To other settings (e.g. from the lab to the real world; from pre-covid to post covid times etc.)

Question 16

Internal and external validity can be like two sides of the same coin. Sometimes, one needs to make a trade-off between external and internal validity; the more applicable a study is to a broader context, the more difficult it is to control for all extraneous facators (internal validity)

The optimal study design ofc has both internal and external validity, however, increasing one without decreasing the other is not always possible