Pre-master
Samenvatting van alle lectures aangevuld met de stof uit het boek. Tevens diverse voorbeelden meegenomen ter verduidelijking
Summary of all lectures supplemented with the material from the book. Also included several examples for clarification
METHODS & MEASUREMENTS
Topics covered in the methods/measurement part of the course:
1. Cornerstones of social research
2. Concepts, variables & their relationship
3. Unit of analysis and nested data – logical fallacies
4. Principles of sampling
5. Survey research and survey instruments
6. Measurement: operationalizing, validity and reliability
7. Measurement: factor analysis
LECTURE 1
1. CORNERSTONES OF SOCIAL RESEARCH
Quantitative research questions:
Descriptive questions: “What is the average number of days of sick leave per year
due to burn-out?”
o Doel is om gegevens samen te vatten
Explanatory questions: “To what extent does the average number of days of sick
leave due to burn-out across sectors of employment
o Doel is om aan te geven waarom iets gebeurt or dingen zich voordoen.
Establishing generalizations that apply to everyone; aim to make generalizations.
Focus on nomothetic ‘causal’ relationships (predicting the outcome variable)
Qualitative research questions:
Questions about lived personal experience, understanding and meaning of stories:
“How did employees who suffered from burn-out last year link this to personal
experiences at work before and after their burn-out?”
You need to ask the question to individuals to give an answer on the question
You’re interested in each individual
It is about explaining
Focus on ideographic relationships (rather than on nomothetic ‘causal’
relationships)
Examples:
Quantitative Qualitative
Do positive experiences with refugees increase a How do people with different experiences in their
person's tolerance towards a new refugee centre in the contact with refugees understand how it affects their
neighborhood? feelings towards the opening of a new refugee centre in
the neighborhood?
To what extent do childhood experiences regarding the What is the experience of outing as LGBTQ in a situation
quality of the relationship of parents impact on gender in which one is the first to out within the family as
identification amongst LGBTQ community? compared to when a relative already outed as LGBTQ
before one did?
Does autocratic leadership of the direct supervisor What does autocratic leadership of a direct supervisor
decrease the work performance and motivation of mean to employees in terms of their motivation and
employees? performance at work?
,THEORY(-IES) <- PROPOSITIONS -> HYPOTHESES
Proposition: general statement regarding a regularity in the behavior or opinion of
subjects.
The general statement is not specific enough to do the research the WHY
question = theories
This is the center to move to empirical research; going to hypothesis or back to
theories
It’s not clear how you will do the research
Example: “When an individual manages a particular task well, then (s)he will perform that
task better in the presence of others than when nobody else is present.”
(= social facilitation effect SFE)
If the question is why is this the case? theory
Theory: provides an explanation for a proposition or set of propositions ≠
speculation!
Example: alternative theories for the SFE proposition: biological VS psychological
‘explanation’
o Biological: the presence of others activates physiological triggers
o Psychological: people perform better when they believe they are being
watched/evaluated.
= nature versus nurture debate in many social and behavioral sciences
If the question is how can we research that? applying it in a concrete situation
hypotheses
Hypotheses: example athletics will perform better;
o The more spectators there are;
o the more journalists there are that will comment on their performances;
o when there is direct coverage of the event by the media (television,…).
From an empirical point of view you want to collect data to verify or research the
proposition.
o You need data to say something about the hypotheses
o You can use existing data, make some correlations about a hypotheses
SCIENCE AS A PROCESS: INDUCTION – DEDUCTION
theories deduction
empirical
hypotheses
generalisations
induction observations
Observations analyses empirical generalizations these confirm theories or not
Induction: starts from observations to hypotheses – we will focus on this
Deduction: starts with theories to generalizations – in the workfield we will focus
on this
,2. CONCEPTS, VARIABLES AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP
Concepts (or constructs): general/abstract description of a social phenomenon.
You have some ideas about it but have to specify it to measure it transform into
variable
o E.g. ethnocentrism
Variable: empirical manifestation of a concept
E.g. a scale that measures ethnocentrism
Hypotheses: an expected relationship between 2 or more variables that can be
researched
E.g. women are on average less ethnocentric than men
TYPES OF HYPOTHESES
Bivariate hypotheses: expected relationship between 2 variables (=total effect)
Diagram:
X Y
Legend:
X = independent variable (‘cause’)
Y = dependent variables (‘outcome’)
= direction of effect (from independent on dependent)
Example:
“The higher the emotional intelligence of a person, the higher the amount of money
a person gives to good causes.”
à Wording reflects metric measurement (scale)
“The higher the emotional intelligence of a person the higher the likelihood of
becoming depressed.”
à Dependent = categorical (non-metric); independent = metric
The kind of variables influences the measurements for the research and the kind of
hypothesis it is:
Distinction between metric VS non-metric refers to ‘measurement level’ of a
variable
Formulation of hypothesis should be consistent with this distinction
Multivariate hypothesis: expected relationship between a dependent variable (Y) and
multiple independent variables (X)
Types of multivariate hypothesis:
a. Relative importance of b. Mediation (interpretation of an
effects effect
X1 ++ X1
Y + Y
X2 + X2 +
c. Moderation (conditional effect) d. Spurious effect (explanation of
X1 an effect)
+ X1
+ Y + Y
+
X2 X2
++ = a stronger relationship, so more important
, + = less stronger
- = negative relationship; decreases the outcome for Y
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