SOCPSY 1Z03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Internal Validity, Informed Consent, Measuring Instrument

• School: McMaster University
• Department: Social Psychology
• Course: SOCPSY 1Z03
• Professor: Karen Mc Garry

Document Summary

Ascertain whether a correlation exists between 2 or more behaviors or attributes. Procedure for collecting information by asking members of a population set of questions according to their responses. To obtain self reports from individuals about their own attributes - their attitudes, behavior ad experiences. Test retest method - investigator applies the measuring instrument to the same respondents on two different occasions and then compares. Casual interpretation of survey data (lisrel and path analysis) require investigator to postulate a pattern of cause and effect relations among variables. Computer then estimates coefficients of effect from data. The coefficients indicate strength of relationship, and provide test whether the casual linkages postulated by theory are indeed present in the data. In future they are interviewed again, this is called the second wave. Objective is to determine whether various outcomes experienced by respondents at later point in time are related to or determined by their experiences, attitudes and relationships at earlier points in time.