CMST 300 Exam 2

  1. conceptualization
    process of coming to an agreement on term in corner of the sheet. theoretical definition.
  2. indicators
    identified to mark the presence or absence of a concept.

    eg. love=holding hands, not touching shoulders
  3. dimensions
    subcategories of a concept

    eg. family love, romantic love, platonic love
  4. operational definition
    created to define the procedures or steps used in measuring a concept. must be specific and unambiguous. HOW.
  5. At the levels of measurement, the attributes must be...
    exhaustive and mutually exclusive
  6. Nominal measures
    Categorical--Offers names or labels for attribute characteristics

    eg. what is your primary source of news: internet, newspaper, radio, other
  7. Ordinal level of measurement
    Categorical-ranked ordered attributes. distance between is irrelevant.

    eg. what is class standing: freshman, sophomore, junior, senior
  8. Categorical levels of measurement
    nominal and ordinal
  9. continuous levels of measurement
    interval and ratio
  10. interval level of measurement
    Continuous--distance relevant & standard, rank ordered, no true zero.

    eg. choose the appropriate response: Newspapers are an important source of news for me: SA, A, N, D, SD
  11. ratio level of measurement
    continuous--measurements are based on a true zero point.

    eg. what is your age? __
  12. reliability
    consistency. do you get the same results every single time?

    eg. standing on a scale 100 times and getting the same number (even if that number is wrong).
  13. validity
    correctness. are we measuring what we say we're measuring?

    eg. standing on a scale that says 392834 lbs, would be invalid.
  14. Can results be reliable but not valid?
    Yes.
  15. Can results be valid but not reliable?
    No.
  16. Which is the highest level of measurement?
    Ratio: You can transform a high level measurement into a lower level, but you can't do the reverse.
  17. Types of non probability samping
    convenience, purposive, snowball, quota
  18. convenience sampling
    asking the people most convenient to fill out a survey
  19. purposive
    choosing people based on your knowledge of the population

    eg. needing business students, waiting outside upper-level buisness class
  20. snowball
    ask a few, get them to locate the others
  21. quota
    create a matrix of characteristics, assign proportions (%), collect people who match this. then use convenience, purposive, snowball or quota
  22. About probability sampling
    Sample should represent population, not have potential bias, ensure representativeness of all members of the population. Gives everyone an equal chance.
  23. study/population
    group you want to study
  24. sample
    group you want to participate in the study
  25. sampling frame
    the list of sampling units
  26. observation unit
    WHO is the data collected from
  27. simple random sampling
    establish a frame (list of people), use random # generator to choose people from the list.
  28. systematic sampling
    population size divided by sample size to get K. every kth person.
  29. stratified sampling
    create subsets (like m/f), create a matrix that allows you to determine how many of each you need, then use simple or systematic sampling
  30. Name some challenges
    • 1. Factual question, questionable answer.
    • 2. Actions and reports of actions are different.
    •    -social desirability/acquiescence response bias
    • 3. Respondent's attitudes, interests can appear unstable
    •   -result of taking survey, learning from survey, tiredness
    • 4. Small changes in wording, big changes in answer.
    • 5. Misinterpretation of word "often"
    • 6. Respondents will answer even if they don't know
  31. Closed question
    researcher provides response options, mutually exclusive, exhaustive
  32. open questions
    respondent answers in her/her own words
  33. how to make good questions
    • -avoid double-barelled
    • -avoid "not"
    • -avoid bias writing (language)
    • -write questions respondent is willing to answer
    • -write questions relevant to respondent
  34. strengths of survey research
    • ·It is useful in describing a large population
    • ·It enables the use of large samples
    • ·It is flexible
    • ·It offers many strengths with regard to measurement
  35. weaknesses of survey research
    • -in constructing response options, all participants' social experiences may not be accounted for
    • -often removes social context from the study of communication
  36. Content validity
    how well a measure covers the range of meanings or the dimensions, included within the concept
  37. construct validity
    based on logical relationships among variables
  38. representational validity
    are measure's categories meaningful to the people who are being assessed?
Author
calhounk1
ID
239915
Card Set
CMST 300 Exam 2
Description
Research Methods in Communication Studies Exam 2
Updated