Political Science 3337F/G Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Face Validity, Concurrent Validity, Convergent Validity
17 Dec 2017
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Interested in whether things get better or worse. Positivist perspective: allows us to get closer to a natural scienti c way to do research. Whether a change in a variable has an effect on another variable. Why we measure: discover ne differences between people, a consistent mechanism for gauging distinctions, provides a basis for estimates of the nature and strength of the relationship between concepts. Provides a method of measuring concepts through de nition. Concepts are the building blocks of theories-> so indicators help us understand concepts. Nominal de nition describes what is meant by a concept. Operational de nition outlines how the research will measure the concept. Developing indicators: surveys, classifying observations (codify and then study whether there are more or less of them, of cial statistics (e. g voter apathy- indicator would be voter turnout, classi cation scheme to analyze written material. There is a dichotomy when you are looking at indicators.
