SOCPSY 1Z03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Likert Scale, Ipsos, Internal Validity

• School: McMaster University
• Department: Social Psychology
• Course: SOCPSY 1Z03
• Professor: Paul Glavin

Document Summary

Procedure for collecting information by asking members of some population a set of questions and recording their responses. Provides self-reported data that can be coded numerically into variables (ask people to report actions) - ex. age and mental health. Survey researchers then examine how these variables are associated. Observational design - observing a sample of a broader population. Observational weaker in proving causation vs. experimental. Useful in describing population without having to survey everyone. Can be used for descriptive, explanatory, or exploratory studies. Most often, people are the unit of analysis. When the unit is not the individual, it is still the individual who is contacted - the person is called a respondent. Respondent: a person who provides data for analysis by responding to a survey questionnaire. Surveys are excellent tools for measuring the attitudes and orientations of a large population (examples of pollsters: gallup, ipsos, and decima)