The Nature of Quantitative Research

Question 1

Concepts

Answer 1

the ideas or mental representations of things

Question 2

Nominal Definitions of Concepts

Answer 2

describes the concept in words, much like a dictionary definition

Question 3

Operational Definitions of Concepts

Answer 3

describes how the concept is to be measured

Question 4

Operationalization

Answer 4

the process of converting concepts into indicators or into specific questions in a questionnaire or an interview

Question 5

Use of Multiple Indicators

Answer 5

reduces the likelihood of misclassifying some people because the language of a question is misunderstood
- ensures the definition of the underlying concept is more fully captured
- helps weed out response sets

Question 6

Response Sets

Answer 6

answering questions in a systematic matter that is unrelated to the participants actual honest answers

Question 7

Codes

Answer 7

labels or titles given to the themes or categories

Question 8

Exhaustive

Answer 8

there must be enough categories so that all observations fall into a category

Question 9

Mutually Exclusive

Answer 9

the categories must be distinct so that an observation will fall into only one category

Question 10

Precision

Answer 10

the fineness of measurement distinctions

Question 11

Accuracy

Answer 11

the correctness of measurements

Question 12

Reliability

Answer 12

concerned with the consistency of measures:
1. Stability over Time
2. Internal Reliability
3. Inter-Observer Consistency

Question 13

Stability over Time

Answer 13

whether the results of a measure fluctuate as time progresses, assuming that was is being measured is not changing
- can be measured through the test-retest method

Question 14

Internal Reliability (Consistency)

Answer 14

whether multiple measures that are administered in one sitting are consistent
- can be measured using Cronbachs Alpha Coefficient

Question 15

Cronbachs Alpha Coefficient

Answer 15

a correlation of 0.8 or higher on a scale of ‘0-1’ is generally accepted as minimum of internal reliability, although results with lower figures may still be used by some researchers

Question 16

Inter-Observer Consistency

Answer 16

all observers should classify behaviour or attitudes in the same way

Question 17

Face Validity

Answer 17

established if, at first glance, the measure appears to be valid

Question 18

Concurrent Validity

Answer 18

established if the measure correlates with some criterion thought to be relevant to the concept

Question 19

Construct Validity

Answer 19

established if the concept relate to each other in a way that is consistent with the researchers theory
- confirmed by seeing that the results match what would be predicted given the theory

Question 20

Convergent Validity

Answer 20

established if a measure of a concept correlates with a second measure of the concept that uses a different measurement technique

Question 21

Main Goals of Quant Research

Answer 21

1. Measurement
2. Establishing Causality
3. Generalization
4. Replication

Question 22

Generalization

Answer 22

achieved by a representative sample and probability sampling