CCJS 300 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Spurious Relationship, Internal Validity, Measuring Instrument

• School: University of Maryland
• Department: Criminology and Criminal Justice
• Course: CCJS 300
• Professor: Alan Lehman

Document Summary

Research design: the plan or blueprint for a study, includes who, what, where, when, why and how of the investigation. Most studies are variations of the experimental model. Y: outcome (dependent variable), usually subject of the study. Ultimate purpose of all scientific investigation is to isolate, define, and explain the relationship between key variables in order to predict and understand the underlying nature of reality. Demonstration of a relationship or covariance between variables. Specifying or indicating the time sequence of the relationship. Exclusion of rival causal factors, elimination of other variables that could conceivably explain away the original relationships the researcher had claimed. Rival causal factors: variables other than x, that may be responsible for the outcome. By excluding rival causal factors, researchers are trying to show a nonspurious relationship. Spurious relationship: a false relationship that can be explained away by other variables. Rival causal factors can either be internal or external.