How much precision is desired?

(agree/disagree)

v.

(strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, strongly disagree)

Nominal

Ordinal

Interval

Ratio

nominal

ex. gender, birthplace, major, hair color

3 types

Ordinal - ranked

Interval - evenly spaces between ranks

Ratio - interval with a true zero

Ratio

it inclued all of the other three, and the true zero allows us to do mathematics

Which type of measurement is 

"number of children?"

Ratio

There is a true zero

Which type of measurement is 

"temperature on Celsius scale?"

Interval

Even though there is a zero, it is not a "true zero"; this quantity does not denote nothing

Ordinal

it is ranked but the ranking does not indicate the degree of difference

Nominal

There is no measure of the degree to which a variable is present

Which type of measurement is used to

"measure everyone's height in inches?"

Ratio

Height has a true zero point

ordinal, interval and ratio

these are expressed numerically to indigate matters of degrees

Nominal

discrete data is composed of qualitative kinds of variables

1.0

The closer to one it is, the more reliable it is

not necessarily

they can be reliable because they are consistent, but be consistently wrong

Face validity

Predictive validity

asking questions from two perspectives

& having agreement on the answers within the instrument

doing a test-retest with consistent results

(giving a measure to the same group twice)

population

sample

statistics

parameters

representative sample

sampling error

census

simple & stratified random sampling

numbers computed from a SAMPLE

statistics - samples

numbers computed from POPULATIONS

populations - parameters

research method by which researchers

select participants or events such that each event in a population has an equal chance of being selected

it insures that

differences and characteristics of the sample are totally random; 

(not just chosen to support hypothesis)

a method by which researchers

select participants or events to represent

known proportions of characteristics in the population

(ex. gender proportions)

we have errors that can occur,

Outliers,

So may not accurately represent the population

gender-appropriate

social-class appropriate

qualitative

quantitative

A study that uses questionanaires

to discover descriptive characteristics

of phenomena

a system for collecting information

it collects results across all participants

in the same way

&

in the same order

1) reliability

2) consistency

3) validity

1) forgeting of information

2) reframing of information based on present situation

3) lying to give socially acceptable responses

4) desire to say yes

5) question wording/format can affect answers

6) question order can affect answers

7) questions can be interpreted differently

1) exhaustive - covering all options

2) mutually exclusive - options should not overlap

True / False

Clear ambiguous questions are desirable

False

Clear unambiguous questions are desirable

True / False

Six line questions are undesirable

True

Be clear and unambiguous

A question that really asks two questions?

What type of question is portrayed in this example:

Did you find the movie to be entertaining and scary?

Double-barreled

asking about entertaining

AND scary

1) Coach the question

"Research has shown that people have various views about set before marriage..."

2) Order of questions can slowly break into sensitive topics

A check on test-taking behavior by asking the same question twice at different locations

(possibly positively and negatively worded)

True / False

It is okay to lead the questionnaire with demographic information

False

put the interesting stuff up front

True / False

Never make your participants average anything

True

Instead ask, "How many days a week do you watch television?"

What mistake does this question contain?

"Do you agree with most Americans when they say...?

construct questions respondents

1) can answer

2) will be willing to answer

3) find relevant 

4) see as simple & concise questions

self-administered

face-to-face

online

building rapport

allowing probing

cost-effective

time-efficient

require literacy skills

limited to one or two open-ended questions

introduces interviewer bias

costly in terms of time and personnel

What is a Likert scale?

5 or 7 point scale

SA    A    N    D    SD

1    2    3    4    5

uses two bipolar adjectives to anchor a scale

ex.

clean  1   2   3   4   5  dirty

Pretesting a survey

(this should be done if you developed a questionnaire, or if you modified an existing one)

no magic number

go for saturation of data

(redundancy)

why trends occur

personal stories behind the trends

Self-administered

Face-to-face

Online

require literacy skills

limited to one or two open ended questions

introduces interview bias

costly in terms of time and personnel

includes all possible answers

(ex. include the word other as a catch all)

each category does not overlap any other

(graduate, junior, sophomore, freshman)

pretesting a survey

if you developed a questionnaire

if you modified an existing questionnaire

Ask well-worded questions

Actively listen

Establish rapport

Maintain neutrality

freestyle

(informal conversational interview)

structured

(standardized open ended interview)

Interview-guide approach

collect 10 responses at once

other's input helps fuel ideas

may be enjoyable for participants

participant must be fully aware of any risks

participation must be voluntary

lines same length?

study on group conformity

group identity studies

some students prisoners

others were guards (randomly)

roles were enacted

experiment was terminated

DV

it is dependent upon the IV

What 3 types of communication experiments are in the literature?

1) How does communication affect...

people's attitudes, beliefs or behaviors

2) How is communication affected by...

 some phenomenon or factor

3). How does one aspect of communication affect...

another aspect of communication

Does the type of message affect behavior?

THE DV variable will change, dependent upon the IV

What are the IV and DV?

How does some aspect of communication affect another aspect of communication?

Both IV and DV are communication

(Ex. how truthfulness affects Nonverbal comm)

relationship

but not necessarily causation

What is external invalidity?