Key Terms

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Research questions: questions intended for exploratory research to search for indications that a relationship exists

Sample: what is being studied

Sampling method: how you select them

Qualitative sampling:

- maximum variation: qualitative sampling method that samples all possible differences

- snowball sampling: having research subjects recruit others for greater research opportunities

- typical case: most common qualitative sampling method, what the most normal case is for whatever study is being done

Research paradigms:

- positivist: quantification, hypotheses, objective measures

- interpretive: how people create meaning, subjective

field observation: study phenomenon in natural place

Reliability: gives the same answer over time, stable, internal consistency, intercoder reliability

Validity: valid measure

- face validity: measures what it's supposed to

- predictive validity: measuring one thing to predict the outcome of another

Key Research Terms:

- concept: abstract idea, representing general ideas

- construct: combines concepts

- variable: actually measuring object of study

- discrete: can't be broken up, uses whole numbers

- continuous: can be broken up into smaller pieces

Variable levels:

- nominal: lowest/weakest level; only groups by name/category

- ordinal: ranking things, distance between ranking is unknown

- interval: numerical scale where differences between distance does matter

- ratio: highest/strongest level; distance between points on ratio matters, existence of true zero